


What's Past Is Prologue

by olehistorian



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 45,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olehistorian/pseuds/olehistorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU: EM Hughes is a novelist who writes historical fiction and Charles Carson is a retired cricketer who is now a sports presenter, a color commentary man (whose on air partner is one Charlie Grigg). You will see the familiar characters albeit in different roles. This is the story of how they met and the long road that is their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For Queen and Country

1991

For Queen and Country tops the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. The sweeping tale of love and life on the brink of the Crimean War has made EM Hughes a literary superstar and brought her more celebrity than the thirty something former archivist can imagine. It is her third book and though the other two have been well received, this is the blockbuster, the one that has made her famous. The one that has her publicist's telephone ringing night and day with requests for appearances on television chat shows, on literary lecture circuits, and endless amounts of book signings.

EM Hughes stumbles into a cab and pulls the door closed behind her. She is more than disorganized as she fumbles through her handbag for mascara, lipstick, and powder. The driver watches in amusement as she holds her compact up and begins applying mascara to her lashes. He finally interrupts her, asks her where she is headed. The TJ Black Book Shoppe she replies with a laugh. She apologizes for being distracted, tells the driver that she never leaves her flat without having "her face on" and that her mother would be mortified to know that she did. Always, look your best Elsie. No matter where you are. You never know who you'll run into. She notices that the cab driver's eyes flick from the road in front of him to her reflection in the rear view mirror. She politely asks him if something is wrong. He assures her that nothing is.

"No, is just that….that you remind me of someone," he says. He squints his eyes as if he is trying to work out who she is. "You aren't that lady in that show about that antiques dealer who solves mysteries are you?" he finally asks.

Elsie laughs. It's not the first time that she's been asked this particular question. "No. Afraid not," she replies kindly as she applies her lipstick.

"Are you sure?" he asks again, confident that she is but wants to create a low profile. After all, he has driven many celebrities before who like their anonymity.

"Yes, I think I'd know," she laughs off his question. "But I'll take it as a compliment that you think I resemble her." She will not tell him that one night when she had been harassed one time too many by a drunk American at a pub that she signed an autograph book in the actress' stead. That she has felt badly about it ever since and vowed to never do it again.

By the time that she reaches the bookseller, she has pulled herself together and is the poised, confident woman that she and everyone else recognizes. No one will know that the cause of her distraction earlier or of her tardiness now is because she just spent two hours on the telephone with Joe Burns. Gently breaking it to him that they are not suited to one another and that one last date will not change things. That it will do no good for him to travel from York to London to try to convince her. That he is a good man and deserves someone who will commit to him and commit to his idea of rural domesticity. No one will know that she cried for a half hour because she hurt him, this good and noble man.

She squares her shoulders and strides into the book shoppe to a queue the stretches the length of the shoppe and out the door. It is mostly middle-aged women who devour her books; housewives who thrive on the romance and she is happy that they learn a bit of history along the way. They are devoted to her and many of them show up not only at a book signing but a lecture as well. Some she recognizes and knows by a first name. She enjoys meeting them. She chats with them, inscribes their books with her name; sometimes a dedication, occasionally something strange or amusing.

As the night wears on, she has signed dozens of books and the queue dwindles away. The stacks of books on the table and boxes surrounding her are gone. She reaches for her coat and shrugs into until she hears a cough, a clearing of the throat and turns to find a tall, rather nice looking man, standing sheepishly across the table from her.

"I was wondering if you might…..I know that the signing is over and that…...," he stammers.

"Better late than never," she smiles. She is momentarily distracted by this man. He is nice looking she thinks. Tall, a mop of dark curly hair, decidedly untidy, could do with a comb through but interesting. Elsie Hughes has always liked curly hair and he has a delicious curl that hangs loose over his forehead just over his right brow. As he pushes it back, she bites her lip. Yes, this one is interesting with his moppy hair, corduroy jacket with patched elbows. Open collar shirt and nicely fitted jeans. Quite nicely fitted. He is very tall, she thinks. He's unlike any of the men who have passed through the queue this evening or any other evening for that matter.

"Have we met?" he asks, handing her the book so that she can make an inscription.

Pausing she looks up, tilts her head and replies. "No, I don't believe so."

"Hmmm, well. You just seem very familiar," he muses, his brow furrowed. She assumes that he, too has her confused with the actress from the television show. She'll not mention it though.

"Well, perhaps we knew each other in a former life," she laughs, flipping the book's cover open so that she can make an inscription. "If you believe in that sort of thing," she adds nervously as she begins to press down onto the page with her pen. "Oh, I'm sorry. My pen's out of ink and I haven't another with me, would you…."

"…Oh, yes," he replies fishing a pen from his coat pocket and passing it to her. Their fingers brush each other's briefly and he pauses before he releases the pen to her. "And you're sure we haven't met?"

"I think I'd remember you," she assures him. "Now who am I making this out to?" She looks up to find that he's staring at her, not in a way that makes her uncomfortable but she feels that he is still trying to remember where it is that they've met. "The inscription?"

"Yes, the inscription, you may write anything you like really." She thinks of writing her number, but then that would be entirely too improper. Something tells her that this man likes rules. A stickler for propriety.

"Do you want it personalized? Some people do."

"Well, I suppose so," he adds. "You can make it out to Alice. Alice Neal."


	2. The Frolicking Fox

Beryl Mason's tavern, The Frolicking Fox, is tucked among a variety of shoppes and pubs along Kilburn High Road. The locals favorite it for the comfort food that Beryl and her staff serve up daily. They relish the shepherd's pie, the soups, and stews; the cod, chips, and mushy peas; the bangers and mash. Her tarts and cakes are favorites as are the nights that her husband Bill can coax her out of the kitchen and into the pub's saloon to warble out a song or two during the intermission of a cabaret. Of course, the fiery redhead denies that she enjoys the attention, insists that she only sings because Bill enjoys hearing her, but there is no denying that a receptive crowd can persuade her into entertaining with a well-rehearsed set.

Beryl is Elsie's oldest friend in London, meeting Elsie seven years ago when she answered the advert to share the rent of a flat in the north of the city. After initial battles over how to arrange the fridge and what types of foods they should store in the cupboard, the two eventually put aside their differences becoming close friends and confidants. Elsie learned to allow Beryl a free hand in the kitchen and Beryl came to appreciate Elsie's aptitude for order and tidiness.

It was Elsie who saw the potential in Bill Mason when after meeting him at the park with his young son, thought the young widower with his gentle steadiness would be the perfect match for her fiery, headstrong friend. It was no secret that Beryl fell for William first, the shy boy who clung to his father and loved to play catch with his dog in the park. The love for his father came not long after.

Like any good barkeep, Bill sizes Elsie up from afar. Bidding goodbye to one of their regulars, Bill grabs a glass and a bottle of Glengoyne single malt, sets it in front of her, and pours a generous measure. Elsie smiles sadly, asks Bill how he knows when she needs a something stronger than the merlot she usually drinks. He pats her hand, mentions that he is good at his job and better still at knowing his friends. Elsie is thankful for Bill, for the man he is. Kind, thoughtful, gentle. Solid and dependable. She sees a great deal of Joe in Bill; for Joe is all of these things as well, but they just are not enough for her to accept him. There is something missing, something she wonders if she will ever find.

"Bill Mason, hurry up, I haven't got all night!" the robust cook shouts as she burst forth from the kitchens carrying a plate of sandwiches. "What's kept you?" Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of Elsie quietly nursing her drink. Shoving the plate into Bill's hands and giving him a hard shove against his arm, she exclaims "And why didn't you tell me she was here?!"

"I only just got…." Elsie tries to explain before she is interrupted by the insistent tones of her friend.

"….I'm so sorry love, Joe's already called," Beryl replies sympathetically. "Come on. Tell me all about it."

"Really, Beryl, it's all right," Elsie insists. Beryl means well, but sometimes Elsie and Bill have to reign her in, assure her that the sky is not falling.

"Nonsense, you don't break it off with a man after four years and say that you're ok," Beryl says already rounding the corner and grabbing Elsie by the hand.

They settle in a quiet corner booth and Beryl is determined to find out exactly why Elsie refused Joe. Why exactly, after all his years of pursuing her, Joe isn't successful in winning her heart.

"But he's a good man, isn't he? He's stable, decent. He treats you well. He loves you. He told me he would move to London if you wanted him to," Beryl rattles off Joe's attributes.

"You're in the wrong profession," Elsie remarks sarcastically, "you'd have made an excellent solicitor." She runs a forefinger around the rim of her glass and sighs deeply. "He is a good man, and kind, and stable and everything that would make a good husband but….."

"….but he isn't the one," Beryl sympathizes. Elsie shakes her head. No, Joe is not the one, not three years ago when he first proposed and not tonight when he proposed again.

"Maybe if he moved to London?" Beryl questions hopefully, thinking that distance doesn't always make the heart grow fonder and that time together will heal what ails them.

"No," Elsie replies quietly, pulling a cigarette from her purse. It is an awful habit, one she's tried to break. Has almost broken, but the stress over finishing the book and this business with Joe has compelled her to fall back into the habit. "I couldn't ask him to do that because he'd be miserable. Joe loves the farm and while it is a nice place to go for the weekend, I am not that farm girl anymore, and Joe's not one for the city. It wouldn't be fair to ask that of him."

Bill ushers the last of them out, a young couple who has had their books cracked open, but not doing much studying. He wishes them a goodnight, smiles as the young man wraps his arm protectively around the young woman who smiles, laughs,and tucks her head into the crook of his shoulder as they walk off into the night. Bill closes the door, clicks the lock with a loud thud, and ambles over to where Beryl and Elsie sit. He slides into the booth next to his wife and casts Elsie a sympathetic gaze.

"But why don't you let him decide that?" Beryl presses further.

"Bee, don't push, Elsie's made her decision. I'm sure that it was hard enough, now let it alone," Bill admonishes his wife firmly but gently.

"I only want to see her happy," Beryl adds, determined to get the last word in.

"Who says that I'm unhappy?" Elsie asks a bit irritated, flicking the ash from her cigarette into the dish that sits nearby. Maybe not unhappy, Beryl thinks watching Elsie draw on the cigarette between her lips, but certainly ruffled.

The two women chat among themselves as Bill picks up a newspaper left by a customer and begins to browse through it. A headline reader, he discards most sections of the newspaper hurriedly before settling in with the sport section. He stretches it out, begins reading, attempting to tune out the women's conversation. He feels sorry for Elsie, what with Beryl trying to encourage her into not giving up on Joe just yet. The conversation thankfully shifts to William and his studies, a girl in whom he is interested.

"Wait a minute, may I see that?" Elsie asks just as Bill is about to tuck the sport page away with the rest of the paper. He hands her the section and she stamps out her cigarette. Taking the page, she looks it over carefully. Her eyes narrow, brow knits together, she bites her lip.

"Since when did you become interested in cricket?" Beryl asks with a laugh.

"I'm not," Elsie answers. "But I met him tonight at the book signing," she replies turning the paper around, a slender finger coming to rest on an advert on the back page.

"Oh, my. He's a handsome one," Beryl says titling her head and leaning in for a better view.

"Oh, that's Charlie Carson," Bill informs them. "I've seen him play. Played for Yorkshire. He was a natural. Was one of the best," Bill gushed.

"So, now he's a presenter? And a reader of historical romance," Beryl added with a smirk. She demurs under the steely glare of her friend.

After another half hour and a few more stories, a bit of gossip about some of their friends and Elsie begins to gather her bag and coat. She thanks them for listening, assures Beryl that she really is all right. Tells them that she is going home to take a warm bath and head straight to bed. That she has an interview in the morning and that she'll let them know when it will air. Beryl hugs her tightly and presses into her hand a bag of take away to put in the fridge for tomorrow's supper. Elsie can always count on Beryl to make sure that she is fed and she can always count on Bill for a kiss and a pep talk. He walks her to the door and tells her that she has done the right thing and the right man will come along. She nods her head and thanks him, tells him that he's right. She'll not let him know that she's worried that she's lost her last chance. Not at happiness but at marriage. She's spent four years with Joe and there isn't anyone else on the horizon.


	3. Tea and Talk

"Good morning, Ms. Hughes," chimes Alice Neal as she sweeps into the hair and makeup room at the studio. The statuesque blonde extends her hand to Elsie, who sits in a chair being fussed over by a young woman applying yet another coat of mascara to her lashes. "I trust everyone has been attentive to you this morning?"

"Yes, very much so," Elsie replies. Too much so, she thinks. Elsie Hughes is not one who likes an atmosphere, especially people fussing over her. She likes nice clothes, likes to feel pretty and made up but not overly so; does not like the feeling that she's being made into something that she isn't. Some sort of overdone imitation of who she really is.

She casts an appraising eye over Ms. Neal, the host of Tea and Talk, the nation's most popular teatime chat show. She is pretty enough, quite attractive really what with her perfect hair and perfect makeup. Her figure all perfectly proportioned. Not that Elsie minds those who want to look this way, Miss Neal is in front of a camera five days and week and often more when she is conducting interviews other than those on her show. Elsie isn't jealous of Ms. Neal; her mother taught her to have more confidence in herself than that. And it isn't as if men have not paid Elsie attention, found her attractive.

"We're on for thirty and you'll wait in the wings while I introduce you, then you'll make your entrance and then, we'll just chat like we are in your living room. Just forget the camera is there," Miss Neal says quite chipper before she turns to check herself in the mirror. Satisfied that she is camera ready, Alice turns back to Elsie with a practiced smile, "You'll do just fine," she tells her with a pat to her arm. Elsie has to muster all of her strength not to roll her eyes, wonders if Ms. Neal thinks that this is her first on camera interview. Though not by Alice, she has been interviewed before and in this very building. She wonders if Ms. Neal realizes that they have the same employer. That Robert Crawley's Downton Media owns both Downton Publishing and Downton Television, who produces Ms. Neal's show. Surely the woman cannot be this daft? Elsie's brow furrows, she looks away for a moment and wonders if this Ms. Neal is Charlie Carson's Alice?

Waiting just off-stage, Elsie smoothes her skirt, checks to make sure that she is wearing both earrings and that they are secure. She smoothes a hand over her cropped locks, her mother was mortified when she took the chance and told the hairdresser to cut her long curls and give her something fresh and youthful. Her mother quoted off something about a woman's hair being her crown, Elsie laughs at the thought now. As she watches, waiting for her introduction, she looks over the crowd, notices the myriad of faces in the audience. The young women who are just beginning their lives, those women who are her own age, professionals trying to balance home and family with their profession. She wonders how they manage it. Then there are the women her mother's age, the women who lived through the last war, women on whom the nation depended. Women, who loved their men, bore their children, built the machines of war that they fought in, kept the country afloat while they were gone, and loved them when they returned home. Strong women like her mother. She begins making mental notes; her next book is underway.

"We have a real treat for you today on Tea and Talk," Alice begins, her voice crisp, clear, and very posh. "Today we welcome the author of the nation's bestseller, For Queen and Country, the sweeping tale of life, love, and loss on the eve of the Boar War. Please help me to welcome, EM Hughes." Elsie cannot help but to roll her eyes this time. Boar War? Did the woman even read the book? Bloody Crimean War. It even says it on the dust jacket. Nevertheless, Elsie plasters on a smile makes her way to the stage.

"Good afternoon Ms. Hughes."

"Good afternoon."

"Now, Ms. Hughes, you are an archivist by experience and I understand that many of your stories come from the papers and stories that your came across while there. But you don't look at all like what I think an archivist might look like," Alice begins. Elsie suppresses the urge not to laugh in irritation at the statement that is phrased more like a question. Instead, she smiles politely, tilts her head demurely, and decides to ask Ms. Neal to explain herself.

"I'm not sure what you mean? What does an archivist look like?"

Alice shifts in her chair, daintily picks a piece of imaginary lint from her skirt, and finally answers into the camera. "Well, you know. A dowdy little thing with her hair in a bun, no makeup, thick glasses, and absolutely no fashion sense." The audience laughs at Alice's assessment and Alice seems pleased with herself, thinks that she has paid Elsie a compliment. Elsie, smiles, laughs with the crowd for a moment but not for the reasons that everyone thinks.

"Well, I do try to scrub up when I venture out. You know, brush the dust from my clothes, and tidy my hair. Pull the pencil from behind my ear," Elsie replies and the crowd roars with laughter and applause. They love her all the more for her wit. Too bad that the sarcasm is lost on the woman sitting opposite her.

Elsie spends the next ten minutes answering questions about her interests, her private life. Alice Neal tries her best to unlock the writer's secrets, but Elsie holds fast, refuses to reveal anything much. She gives the audience just enough. The public craves knowledge of her personal life and devours every morsel or crumb that might fall their way. She allows them a few tidbits, careful not to give too much away. She tells them of her family from Argyll; of growing up on her family's farm and of her father who told her stories of their ancestors and his time in of service during the war. She tells of her mother, who did her bit for the war effort as a "Lumberjill" with the Women's Timber Corps. Elsie reveals that though she, herself, was mediocre in at school she excelled at university earning a Master's degree in History specializing in the religion and society of the Victorian Era. The audience learns that her love of research lead her into archival work where she stayed, working at The University of Glasgow, her alma mater before moving on to the University of York.

What they do not know, what she keeps to herself is that when her beloved father died a horrible death from cancer at the age of forty-five she questioned her faith; questioned how a loving God could let a kind and loving man like Michael Hughes suffer when his family needed him. She does not speak about her crisis of faith, how she left her church behind while she grieved and that it took some time before she came back, felt whole again. She grieved that he never saw her graduate from university or go on to live the dream that he had for her; the dream to rise above her roots. He had thought it might come in business or politics from the basement of a university, but she looks back now and knows he'd be pleased nonetheless. He had been her greatest encourager, protector, and defender but it is from her mother that her strength comes. Her mother who cares for the sister that she rarely mentions, not because she is ashamed but because people are less accepting of those who are different. The mother, who widowed young, is the standard-bearer for their family, holds her head high, and carries on in the face of discouragement. With each passing year, Elsie has come to realize that she is more and more like her mother and thanks heaven for it.

The interview ends and all in all, it has gone well. Alice made up for her earlier faux pas and they finally spoke of the book. Her generic questions allow Elsie to answer them without making Alice look foolish, though Elsie realizes that Alice likely hasn't read the book. Nevertheless, the interview is over and Robert always tells Elsie that any publicity is good publicity and she hopes that he is right. Both women leave the stage and as they make their way into the wings, Alice feels hands on her waist and a man pulling her into an embrace.

"Hello, love," Charles says placing his hands on Alice's waist and dropping a kiss into her hair.

"Charlie, you'll ruin my hair," Alice protests, shrugging her shoulders forcing Charles back. Charles steps back, raising his hands in mock surrender. He apologizes for infraction and Alice seems moderately placated." She turns to Elsie and introduces her to Charles. "Charlie won't you meet Elsie Hughes. She was today's guest."

"We've met," Charles announces with a charmingly crooked smile.

"Nice to see you again," Elsie replies with a bright smile of her own, extends her hand to meet his. As she shakes his hand, she sees the sadness in Charles Carson's eyes. It is then that she realizes that not only did Alice Neal not read her book, she never even opened the cover to see that Charles had made the effort to have it personally inscribed. If she had, Alice would have known they had already met.

"I've come to see if you'd like to join me for lunch, nothing special but I am on my way to do some voice over work for some adverts and thought if you had the time….."

"Oh, Charlie I can't. I have a meeting in an hour," Alice cries. "But," she pauses in thought, "perhaps Ms. Hughes could join you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impo…" Charles begins.

"You don't have to…." Elsie protests.

"…please, Ms. Hughes. Charlie doesn't like to eat alone and he loves to talk history and battles and such. He can spend hours at the Imperial War Museum. It bores me stiff, honestly," she laughs.

"If you're sure, then?" Charles asks Alice.

"Of course."

"Ms. Hughes?" Charles asks turning to Elsie.

Elsie feels her bottom lip sting; she has pulled it between her teeth and she is anxious but doesn't know why. It is not as if she is going out on a date with this man. It is simply lunch and Alice has given her permission. "Sure, why not," Elsie replies, a confident smile belying the nerves she feels in the pit of her stomach. Alice bids them goodbye, tells Elsie that her interview will air next Thursday afternoon, and then bustles off after giving Charles a quick peck on the cheek.

"I hope this is all right," Charles begins tentatively as he carefully slices through the steak that sits before him. "All Alice wants me to eat is twigs and grass," he says in a near whisper. Elsie notices the shy look on his face, as if he thinks that he's said too much; revealed something personal.

"No, this is marvelous," she soothes, slicing across her own cut of beef. "I've not eaten here before."

"Well, I've not brought Alice here, she's not one for hearty fare like this," Charles says raking his fork through his carrots and parsnips. Charles feels a blush creep up his cheeks; he has said too much this time. Why would this woman care if he's brought Alice here or not?

"Well, then, I'll count it as a privilege that you've brought me here," Elsie assures him, taking a sip of her wine.

"Your book is very good…."

"….you've read it?"

"Mmmm, yes," Charles admits. "I did buy for Alice but when I dropped by her flat last night to drop it off she wasn't home." Elsie notices the sadness behind the smile that he is offering. "She's very busy. Always in demand, you see. So I took the book home and read it. I enjoyed it very much. I always liked adventure stories since I was a lad. *Five on a Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Lord Jim."

"I was always partial to the Victorian novels myself, tales of the dark side of nature," Elsie laughs, slicing through her parsnips with precision. "Dracula, Frankenstein. But then I do love to curl up with a cup of tea and some Austen or Bronte."

"A romantic," Charles looks up from his plate to find Elsie blushing. He is hard pressed to remember the last time that he made Alice blush or the last time that they talked about anything other than the next cinema or theatre premier they she is required to attend. He tries in vain to remember the last time it was easy with Alice, just to relax with her. "So your mum was a Lumberjill, hum? My mum was a Landgirl. Sounds like we have something in common," Charles begin before coughing a little, embarrassed.

"Yes, I'd say that we do then," Elsie replies with a smile. "I was just thinking that my next book may be about those women who worked on the homefront during the war."

"Perhaps you'd like to talk with my mum," Charles offers proudly. "She has plenty of stories to tell," he laughs.

"I'd love to," Elsie replies sincerely. She pauses. He has complimented her book and she wants to return the favor, to show him that she is interested in what interests him. "So, I understand that you were a cricketer."

Charles places his fork down, sits back in his chair. Elsie has hit upon something that pleases him, something that he is interested in sharing. Since his retirement, Alice is no longer concerned with discussing his playing career, since his step away from field, from the spotlight. For the next half hour, Elsie listens attentively as Charles regales her with stories of his playing career. She watches as he becomes animated, his large hands gesture as he tells of his exploits, tells of those of his teammates. He tells her of the injury that brought him to retirement, the shoulder that hurts him still; how it gets stiff on rainy days. Something in his voice tells her that it is not just the injury that hurts, but the thought of what might have been.

He mentions his broadcasting partner, Charlie Grigg, tells her that they played at Yorkshire together; that they are known as the "Cheerful Charlies." Elsie laughs and asks why. Though Charles seems pleasant enough and he has a nice smile and warm, inviting eyes, she cannot see him as a "Cheerful Charlie." He seems a bit traditional in his three-piece suit, crisp white shirt, and tie. In the way he phrases things, the way he enjoys an elegant table and nice conversation. He tells her the name comes from his and Griggs' days entertaining their fans, singing – slightly inebriated – in pubs after winning a match. It is too bad, she thinks, that this man is taken; he is someone that she would like to know better. She wonders what he sees in a superficial woman like Alice Neal; perhaps it is what all men see in women like her. Perhaps it is the conquest, the thrill of the chase.

Another hour passes before either of them realizes the time. Charles is the first to check his watch; she thinks him so old-fashioned in a nice, steady sort of way. He pulls the watch from his waistcoat pocket and flips open the lid. She smiles; not many men carry a pocket watch anymore. She wonders if there is a story there; if it perhaps belonged to his father or was a gift from someone special.

"Oh, Ms. Hughes, I am sorry. I've kept you too long," he apologizes.

"No, Mr. Carson. Not at all," she assures him with a smile. "I've enjoyed our lunch very much." As Charles turns to call for the bill, Elsie glances out the window. She has had a fine lunch, almost hates to leave. Her eyes narrow as she thinks that she recognizes someone in the distance. She tilts her head, leans a little closer until she is sure. She does not know the man but she recognizes the woman. Standing next to a cab, is Alice Neal, her arms wrapped tightly around a man's neck, her lips covering his in a passionate kiss.

Elsie hurriedly turns back to Charles, does not want him to catch her gawking at the spectacle across the street. The waiter brings the check, lays it down. Elsie makes to retrieve it and finds Charles reaching for it at the same time; they smile at one another.

"I'd never ask a lady to lunch and allow her to pay for it," Charles rumbles, voice smooth as silk.

"You didn't invite me, Mr. Carson. Remember?" Elsie purrs. Charles tilts his head, smiles.

"I think that you can call me Charlie."

"Charles," she corrects him. "And I'm Elsie. Shall we split the bill?"

"If that is what you'd like, Elsie. But you must promise to let me pay next time," he replies. Next time. Oh, if only he means it she thinks. If he had only he seen that little minx and the man across the street. Elise pulls pen and paper from her purse, scratches something down.

"My friends own a pub and they are throwing a party to celebrate the book's success and such. It is next Friday night if you would like to come," she says handing to him the paper with the address. "Bring your Ms. Neal with you if you like."

He thanks her for the invitation, takes the paper, folds it, and places it into his wallet. She doubts that he will come, doesn't really know why she invited him. After all, she barely knows him and Ms. Neal probably has plans for them; a visit to the theatre or something much more important than a night at a local pub. They shake hands and say goodbye and Elsie wonders if she will cross paths with him again.


	4. Tête–à–Tête

Charles Carson awakes with a smile of sated bliss tugging at his lips. Remembering the night before, he turns and reaches across to find her place on the bed next to him empty but still warm. Her scent still on the sheets. She has not been gone long and he hears her in the bathroom, the shower on. Today is the day that he will ask her again; he's had enough of waiting. She's put him off before and he's ready now, ready for the church or the registry office, whichever she prefers, it doesn't matter to him. As long as she is Mrs. Charles Carson, has his ring on her finger, and their names are signed together. Charles throws the covers back and slides off the bed, his feet planted solidly on the floor. He stretches out, rubs his shoulder, the one that reminds him that he is getting no younger, that he wants children while he can still run after them. At forty-one the desire for little ones running about is strong; visions of a son that he can teach to play sport or a daughter that he can read to or who begs him to play tea party fill his mind more and more often these days.

"You know, sweetheart, I think that we should consider setting a date," Charles rumbles in Alice's ear, as he slides into the shower behind her. His breath tickles her neck; his hand on her hip pulls her closer into his embrace. The smooth skin of her back against his chest exhilarates him and his hand moves from her hip up her waist to rest just under her breast. He sighs in pleasure as the warm water pulse down around them. He moves her damp hair aside, kisses her neck tenderly. "I've some time off in a couple of weeks."

"Charlie, I don't know why you are in a hurry," Alice replies, slightly shifting, turning to face him, wrapping her arms around him.

"Don't you want to be married?" Charles asks, his eyes searching hers. He cannot understand why she continues to put their marriage off.

"I thought that we agreed to wait," she says more than asks. It sounds like a command to Charles; Alice takes this tone from time to time, when she tries to control a situation. He hears it in her interviews when she is turning someone in the direction that she wants them to go. She learned it from her mother; a woman who controlled Alice's father, tried to control Alice before she packed her bags and left their dingy flat as soon as she was old enough.

"We agreed to wait until your career was established," Charles reminds her, drops a kiss to her shoulder. He sighs "And your career is established now. You've said that we don't have the time but that isn't it, is it?"

"Oh, Charlie. Why do you need a piece of paper?" Alice protests as she pushes his hair back from his forehead.

"Because I do," Charles insists.

Alice wiggles free from Charles embrace, opens the door, and leaves the shower. Even if he is put out with her he still cannot help but admire her form as she reaches for a towel that hangs on a hook nearby. He watches as she wraps the towel around her, wraps another around her hair.

"Aren't you tired of going back and forth between two places?" he asks her as he lathers the soap across his arms and chest, down his stomach and legs. "Wouldn't it be nice to have our own place and little ones running about?" What he cannot see, is the expression on Alice face as she closes her eyes, breathes deeply. The shake of her head, the hard set of her jaw. She's told him that a marriage certificate is not necessary for her; that the example of her parent's unhappy marriage is evidence enough of that. Why jinx happiness with something unnecessary? It's just a piece of paper. How many times had her father wished that he could have left but his church told him that he could not because they were 'married'? If it sours, Alice wants to be able to leave. She's not told Charles this. She hasn't told Charles many things. One thing that she has not told him is that she does not intend to have children, his or any other man's. That she does not want to be a mother and certainly not the kind that her mother is to her.

"Charlie let's not argue about this right now," she says as she heads into the bedroom. "We have to get ready for work and I don't want to start the day off with an argument."

"We've been invited to a party at The Frolicking Fox," Charles calls from the bathroom as he turns off the taps and reaches for a towel. He dries himself, wraps the towel around his waist.

"The what?" Alice asks.

"Ms. Hughes invited us. Her friends own the pub and they are throwing a party to celebrate the success of her book. I'd like to go," answers as he retrieves his clothes from the chair that they are resting across, the chair that they were haphazardly thrown over the night before.

"I really don't care to," Alice says in that tone that brooks no room for argument. Charles asks why not as he slips into his trousers. "I don't relish spending my Friday night at a pub. I told you that we are above that." Charles shoots her withering look as he shrugs into his shirt, buttons it up. Alice is too smug for her own good sometimes, he thinks. Oh, he appreciates the finery, the care she takes to dress well, look nice. But he sometimes wishes that she were easier, that they could sit and talk, lose track of time. Wishes that she laughed as she used to, flirted with him more, and enjoyed hearing the stories of his playing days, wanted to leave the city, travel to the country to visit his mother. He reaches for his tie, aggressively ties crosses it, slips the knots, draws it down. He finds his socks and shoes, slips into them. He is angry and Alice knows it but she resolved to herself that once she rose above her birth she'd not look back, not look back at the common life. It is high class for her all the way.

"I hope that I never forget where I came from," Charles barks as he brushes past her. "It cannot always be high society, Alice. If you change your mind….about anything….you know where I'll be."

xxxxxx

"She set you up on a date with her boyfriend?" Beryl Mason cries in disbelief adjusting the telephone against her ear, as she smooths icing onto the base of a cake. A few days have passed since Elsie's interview with Alice Neal and her luncheon date with Charles and Beryl cannot believe that this is the first that she is hearing of it. And over the telephone no less. Beryl likes Joe, thinks that Joe would have made a good husband for Elsie but that decision has been made and it is time to move on. When Elsie tells her of this luncheon date with the former cricketer, she cannot contain her glee.

"Firstly, it was not a date," Elsie admonishes her; each word given its own attention; her brogue thickens as is wont when she is upset or pushed. "Secondly, don't you think at our ages people are a little old to be called 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend'?" Elsie shuffles several yellow legal pads around looking for a specific one; she has written some notes for the new novel, jotted down some ideas and wants to add some new ones. Wants to add Charles mother's name to the list of women with whom she would like to speak. When she finds it, she scrawls down a few notes and adds Adeline Carson's name to the list that has her own mother's name at the top.

"Well, gentleman friend then," Beryl concedes before adding, "and what was he like?"

"He was very nice and that is all there was to it," Elsie replies firmly, shifting the telephone from one ear to the other as she swivels round looking to the pile of books and papers stacked on the floor beside her. She picks up several pieces of paper, places them atop her desk, and begins organizing them into a file. Every other room of her flat is well sorted, neat, and tidy except for this room, which is generally off limits to everyone except for her assistant Phyllis Baxter who vainly attempts to tidy it, to set everything straight into neat stacks and into the filing cabinets that Elsie purchased a year ago. Even with Baxter's efficiency, Elsie is unable to work in anything except ordered chaos. Mountains of yellow legal pads with doodles and notes sit stacked around her desk, books line the bookshelf, and folders full of old notes, newspaper clippings and copies from the archives fill the filing cabinets.

"But was he interested?"

"Interested in what?" Elsie asked, irritation lacing her words. She knows very well what Beryl is asking but refuses to give her any information until she absolutely has to.

"In you!" Elsie can almost feel the telephone receiver vibrate against her ear, with Beryl's enthusiasm.

"Honestly Beryl!" Elsie exclaims. "The man is taken."

"But he's not married," Beryl insists, standing back from the cake that she is decorating, pleased with her handiwork. If only persuading her friend to find herself a gentleman friend were as easy as decorating a cake.


	5. Distractions

Charles wonders why he stays with her, why Alice still has a hold on his heart. After all the years of waiting for her to decide, to decide when they will marry, (and it is becoming more worrisome to him that she may be rethinking marriage at all) he is wondering if they are still suited for one another. He looks over his notes for today's telecast, begins tallying statistics for some of the players and the teams involved, but he is uncharacteristically distracted. The columns and rows of numbers are running together and he puts the pencil down, slips off his reading glasses, and rubs a hand across his brow, pinches the bridge of his nose. Charles normally enjoys the few hours before a match; a cup of tea and a few biscuits as he tucks away with the newspaper, clearing his mind of anything and everything but the purity of sport. He reads the paper, marks his copy for the telecast, checks and double-checks his statistics; he has an assistant for that but he really doesn't trust anyone but himself. He enjoys the challenge of making the figures match, of discovering things. The stadiums are blissful sanctuaries of quiet in the hours before matches, a few people filtering in and out and it is before Charlie Grigg comes in at the last minute, blows in like a typhoon, talking a mile a minute, laughing and telling jokes.

Charlie Grigg is still 'Cheerful' and the crew and staff find him humorous and he is amusing, can always be counted on for a laugh. Charles finds his jokes funny, sometimes, though he cringes at those that are too distasteful; the ones that are vulgar or disparage women. They have known each other a long time, since their days playing for Yorkshire; Grigg buying rounds of drinks in the pubs for their fans and their singing for them when they won in spectacular fashion. Anyone who looks would think them opposites. Gregarious Charlie Grigg and thoughtful Charlie Carson, but they belong to the same religion, worship at the altar of sport.

When they met, Charlie Grigg seemed to know the ropes, seemed to know how cities worked. For Charles, a shy boy from Yorkshire countryside, who had spent his boyhood reading adventure stories and wandering the outdoors, Charlie Grigg seemed a godsend. Someone to help him navigate foreign waters. For Charlie Grigg, Charles Carson gave him an air of respectability, a touchstone of responsibility; and Charles could always be counted on frighten off anyone who came threatening. They have made a good broadcast team, the 'Cheerful Charlies'; Charles depth of knowledge and Grigg's affable personality. However, today, Charles is distracted, needs some time to himself before the storm blows in. The whole distasteful disagreement with Alice has him thinking, reevaluating.

Charles pushes back from the desk, closes the yellow folder with his papers, the statistics that he's been working on. He folds his glasses closed, tucks them safely away in his shirt pocket, and grabs his jacket. He walks from the box down to the field, the fragrance of freshly mowed grass filling his nose, a perfume that is immediately pleasing, immediately comforting. He kneels down, runs his hand across the lawn, the blades pricking up through his fingers. He looks up over the vast expanse of green and he thinks back, back to Alice.

As Charles walks the length and breadth of the stadium, he thinks back on to the first time he met her. She had quite taken his breath away with her sweet voice and kind eyes. Selected to play in the test match for England, he and Grigg had gone to London and in no time Grigg had wrangled them an invitation to a party at a local pub. Though Grigg seemed the obvious choice Charles thought, Alice instead introduced herself to the shy Yorkshireman. A pretty blonde, she was a journalist with the Times, making a quite name for herself. They'd hit it off that night, found they had some things in common and danced the night away and every night that Charles was in London.

Charles remembers the first time that he met Alice's parents. The first time that he met her mother, the woman with such a hard edge she had driven Alice from home the moment the girl was old enough to pack a bag and live on her own. A mean and nasty woman, Edna Neal had made her daughter's life miserable and driven her husband to the bottle. Nothing Alice ever did could be good enough or live up to her older sister. Alice was never pretty enough, her figure too skinny for her height. Her voice too soft or alternatively too harsh, if she tried to correct it. Alice was quite bright at school but not nearly bright enough. Alice's father, a mechanic by trade, never made enough money no matter how many hours he worked. Nothing ever seemed to be enough. He had coped by drowning his sorrows in liquor; Alice had simply left. The first time that Charles met the Neals, Alice had taken him home for Christmas. Edna had let him know straight away that professional sports was no fit occupation for a grown man. Not one who intended to provide for a family. Christmas Day dinner had been especially tense with Alice and her mother exchanging barbs across the roast and veg.

Charles wonders if that young woman he fell in love with still exists. He sees glimpses of her from time to time, the way she smiles at him across a crowded room, the childlike delight that plays across her features when he catches her unawares with a compliment, when her defenses are down. When she is with her nieces and nephews, cooing at the new baby. She hasn't always been so cold, so selfish. Warmth was there once, can be there again he thinks, if she will allow it. She's walled off her heart from pain. He knows that she wants to forget her upbringing, divorce herself from the discouragement, from her working class roots, from everything that she thinks has hurt her. He hears his mother's voice in his ears.

She reminds him that he is a collector of strays and broken things, things that he thinks he can help and repair. When he was a boy, his friends had cast off toy trains or bicycles. If they were broken he could fix them, make them new again. If a stay pup needed a home, Charles would scoop it up, tuck it in his coat and bring to the back door, ask for some scraps for the poor thing. Adeline Carson called, calls, her son a mender of broken things. Yes, his mother's voice rings as clear as if she was here. Is Alice just another broken thing that you think you can mend or do you love her?


	6. At Last

The Frolicking Fox is certainly living up to its name as the small crowd of friends and those Elsie considers family filter into the pub and settle in. A friend of Bill's, and William's music teacher, John Bates, has agreed to provide the music and sets in at the piano, plays a variety of classic that Beryl knows Elsie likes. Jazz standards mostly with some R&B thrown in for good measure. He's brought Anna Smith with him, a lovely petite blonde who occasionally sings at the Fox when he plays. Anna is a young actress on the West End, making a name for herself in the theatre. Beryl claims that she sees sparks between them but Bill tells her that she sees sparks between any man and woman who are around each other more than five minutes. However, she insists, insists that she sees the pianist's eyes crinkle into a smile every time he looks at the singer. A few people are playing darts and others are gathered at the billiards table. Bill makes sure that no one is parched for very long; he has pulled out the good stuff and the shy but efficient Joe Molesley is on duty tonight. Bill says that he'd never peg Molesley for a bartender, a man who's shy and reserved, a little haphazard in life but he's a real talent with a cocktail shaker and the customers like his affable nature. Moreover, Beryl is right when she said that Molesley has a soft spot for Elsie's assistant, Phyllis Baxter. Even Elsie believes that the two are well suited; both smart, dependable, and loyal to a fault.

Elsie sits at the bar, smartly dressed in a long sleeve cream sweater and jeans; perfect for a casual affair and she wants to be comfortable. She enjoys having her friends about and this party is so very different from the events that she is required to attend, from the parties that Cora Crawley hosts at Christmas when Robert invites all of his employees and those other affiliates to the Gratham House. Cora is always welcoming, her manners impeccable, but it all rings a bit superficial. The house is beautiful of course and the decorations expensive. The Christmas tree is taller than any Elsie has ever seen and the ornaments alone cost more than half a year's rental on her first flat. The presents piled underneath the tree for Mary, Edith, and Sybil are not terribly extravagant in number, but Elsie wonders what Father Christmas delivers to the girls when he comes. The food is posh, they are things that Elsie that actually likes (dishes that Beryl can cook if she takes a notion) but not the things that she prefers. No those things are the dishes they are having tonight; all of Elsie's favorites and standard pub fare to boot.

Elsie nurses her wine, a second glass, and is on her third cigarette and desperately trying not to think about whether Charles will be coming or whether Alice Neal will be on his arm. She tells herself that she does not know why she cares; that she doesn't really know this man, only had lunch with him because his girlfriend sent her off with him in her stead. Nevertheless, there is something about him. Something that makes her feel comfortable and uncomfortable too if she will admit it. Yet, she is not the woman to go after a man who is committed, not the type to break a household up and she will put aside her feelings it he does not return them no matter what Beryl says. She has spent the evening making small talk, thanking her friends for coming, accepting their congratulations on the success of the book, and watching Joe Molesley trying his best to impress Phyllis. She hopes that those two can manage another date soon.

Elsie feels Bill's hand come to rest gently on her arm and she looks up to see him nod, eyebrows raised, and he's looking over in the direction of the front door. She follows his gaze and bites down on her lip because he is standing there. Tall and broad shouldered, dressed in his jeans and white shirt, black overcoat with his collar turned up. He has a bouquet of cut flowers in his hand he stands there alone; that woman is not with him.

"Elsie, I'll keep Bee distracted. Go say hello," Bill encourages her, gives her hand a gentle squeeze. Elsie smiles, mouths a thank you, and pushes away from the bar. If Beryl is her best friend, Bill is a very close second; a kind and gentle soul, he is a romantic at heart and knows when to keep his wife at bay to allow a private moment. As Elsie approaches Charles she suddenly feels self-conscious a queasy feeling in her stomach. She brushes her hand through her hair nervously.

"Hello," her voice soft and inviting, a smile offered.

"Hello, I, um, I usually I bring a bottle of wine to a party but…."

"….but we're at a pub." They smile at one another, easy and the ice is broken. "They are very lovely. Thank you. Let's get these in some water," Elsie replies. "I'm afraid that we're nothing fancy here. Just some friends and family," she says, not sure why she seems to be offering an excuse for the casual atmosphere.

Out of the kitchens bustles Beryl with a vase, Bill following behind her, an apologetic look playing across his face. "Oh, hello, you must be Charles. I'm Beryl Mason, Elsie's oldest friend," she fires out, taking the bouquet from Elsie and placing the flowers in the vase. "Come right over here so that we can introduce ourselves properly.

"So you didn't bring Miss Neal with you?"

"Beryl!" Elsie cries in horror.

Charles laughs graciously. He's accustomed to making excuses for Alice. "No, I am afraid Alice had a prior commitment." I'll bet Beryl thinks.

"Well, make yourself to home Mr. Carson," Bill says, pulling Beryl behind the bar and back into the kitchens for a chat.

Elsie introduces Charles to a few of her friends, to Molesley who gushes about Charles' playing career. Reminds Charles of his greatest accomplishments, begins to recall statistics and recount his own days playing on his village's team. He begins to demonstrate his own bowling technique, looking like a gangly chimp before Phyllis kindly intervenes. Molesley drafts Charles a pint and then he and Elsie search out a table, greeting more of her friends along the way.

Charles and Elsie sit and talk for the whole half an hour before Beryl escapes Bill's grasp in the kitchen. He has made her promise not to embarrass Elsie with too many questions or innuendo. To leave them be and allow them a proper chinwag. For a while, she watches from a respectable distance. Observes Elsie laughing, brushing her hand along the back of her neck, dipping her head down and to the side. Beryl knows that move; she's seen it often enough when she and Bill double dated with Elsie and whomever she happened to be seeing at the moment. It was a sure sign that she was anxious and interested. She observes as they leave the table and make their way to the dartboard. Beryl pulls Bill to her side. "Watch this," she tells him as Charles pulls three darts from the board and comes to Elsie's side. He hands a dart to her and she throws it missing the mark wildly. Beryl shakes her head. "I cannot believe this," she confides to her husband. They watch as Elsie takes the second dart, aims, throws, and again, misses very wide of the mark. "Can you believe your eyes?" she asks Bill. "I've seen Elsie Hughes win money off men who were damn good. I have a good mind to…."

"You'll stay right here," Bill tells her firmly. "You'll let him show her how to hit the bullseye."

"You have to hold it just so, like this," Charles says as he moves behind Elsie, stands behind her so close that she can felt the heat radiating from him. "See, like this," he says as he wraps his fingers around hers. "Hold it gently, but firmly, balancing its weight." She knows that he doesn't intend it, but the timbre of his voice in her ear, the closeness of his body next to hers is overpowering her. She can barely concentrate on his words and really, they are of no consequence to her, she could care less about whether or not the dart that she holds between her fingers at this moment hits the bullseye or even makes it to the board. This man is stirring things in her that she hasn't felt in such a long time. "Now," he says as he draws her hand back, "it's all in the wrist," and he allows her hand to flick forward.

"Just like that," she says breathlessly as the dart releases and flies forward and with a thud sticks in the board, hits the bullseye. She turns to thank him and he hasn't moved, he's standing so close to her that she bumps into his chest and it startles her. She shakes her head, closes her eyes, and sighs. "I'm sorry Charles."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Elsie," he rumbles, his eyes smiling, she notices that he pats a hand at his waist.

"Come on, why don't I buy you a drink? In payment for my lesson," Elsie offers with a smile, a soft hand placed on his arm.

xxxxxx

"Oh, come on Elsie Hughes, get yourself up here," Beryl cajoles her. Beryl is more than slightly sloshed having enjoyed one too many of Joe Molesley's cocktails. Anna has taken a break, an intermission, and Beryl has taken to the microphone and the music selection has taken on a decidedly Motown theme. Beryl has run the gamut from "Can't Hurry Love" to "Sittin' on The Dock of the Bay" to "These Arms of Mine." Though Elsie is loath to admit it, when she and Beryl were flat mates, they often spent many a night cooking and enjoying one too many glasses of wine and singing and dancing the night away in the kitchen. Truth told they both miss those days, when a bottle of cheap wine and a kitchen sing-along could cure what ailed them.

Despite her protests, their friends' encouragement pushes a tipsy Elsie toward the microphone and Beryl slings a heavy arm around her shoulders and whispers something to Elsie, unfit for anyone else's ear, which gets the reaction Beryl wants (a throaty laugh, dirty around the edges and a blush). Beryl asks the audience for a request and the murmuring begins, Bill starts to speak up, wants to hear "Son of a Preacher Man" because he is one, but a nasally voice with a little giggle in it is heard above the others. "How about Stop in the Name of Love?" calls Joe Molesley. It is a favorite of his because when they sing it, Phyllis Baxter joins in making the duet a threesome. Phyllis waves the suggestion off, ducks her head down. Still a shy woman in front of a crowd.

"How about… 'At Last?" a deep voice rumbles from the back of the room. Elsie's head snaps up and suddenly Beryl seems to sober. Elsie worries her bottom lip and looks pleadingly at Beryl. Beryl winks mischievously, presses the microphone into Elsie's hand, and slips off to the side. Elsie reaches for the tumbler of scotch that sits on the piano, swallows down the entire contents (she needs a bit of Dutch courage for this one), and is thankful that Bill buys the good stuff. She takes a deep breath and nods to John to begin playing.

At last  
My love has come along  
My lonely days are over  
And life is like a song

The crowd quiets, listens to the smoothness of her voice. Bill takes Beryl by the hand, twirls her around into his embrace, and begins to dance with her. The gesture is not lost on Joe Molesley who nods to Phyllis Baxter, she smiles, meets him half way. Gradually, couples fill the floor, swaying in place as Elsie serenades them.

My lonely days are over and life is like a song,

At last the skies above are blue  
My heart was wrapped up clover the night I looked at you

And suddenly, before her, he sits there, eyes all grey smoke and amber, and he is looking only at her. She knows that she will regret it but she is just drunk enough, just numbed enough to not care just now. Beryl is right, he is not married, and that woman that he is with is not good enough for him by half. Elsie moves closer to him, stands face to face with Charles, and feels herself about to reach out. About to reach out and touch his cheek, but she stops herself, pulls up short. Elsie Hughes is not that drunk, never has been so drunk as to make a complete fool of herself. Then, he smiles at her, takes the microphone away, lays it aside, though she continues to sing.

You smiled, you smiled  
Oh and then the spell was cast  
And here we are in heaven  
for you are mine...

At last.

Charles extends his hand and she takes it, the air surrounding them is palpable with electricity. Elsie thinks that it is because she is tipsy, the warmth she feels is due to the single malt she has drunk, but she looks at him, he is stone cold sober, and she knows that what she is feeling is real.

"That was very lovely. Thank you for my serenade," Charles rumbles earnestly, his hand tightening around her waist.

"I'm afraid that I've embarrassed us both," Elsie sighs.

"Get away with you," he whispers. "I enjoyed it very much. But," he pauses, "I'm afraid, that I must be going. It's late and we've test cricket tomorrow and it is a very long day," Charles admits sadly. He cannot remember when he has had such a good time, when he has not had to think about how he might embarrass someone or say the wrong the thing. The last time that he could be just himself.

"I'm so pleased that you came," Elsie replies, a smile tugging at her lips. "Let me walk you out."

Elsie walks Charles to the door, doubts that anyone notices that they have gone missing from the party, the music still fills the air and the beer and liquor still flows.

He shrugs into his overcoat, pops the collar up. "Perhaps next time I'll do the serenading," he says with a wink.

"I'll hold you to it," Elsie replies. She watches as he leaves, brings a hand to the back of her neck, and smiles. This time, she believes that there may indeed be a next time.

xxxxx

During the cab ride, Charles has thought about Alice, about their relationship; whether they are still suited to one another, whether he is indeed a collector of broken things and whether he wants to continue to try with her. His mind continues to wander to Elsie, to her warmth, to her smile, to the way her voice warmed him and the easy way they have with one another. She is all woman, confident and successful, soft and feminine. She is stirring things in him that he truly hasn't felt with Alice in so very long. He wonders if he isn't staying with Alice out of some sense of duty, of some distorted sense of obligation.

It is late and tomorrow will be long, but he cannot rest easy without talking with Alice one last time. It is a niggling feeling. He doesn't like being at odds with anyone and he doesn't like leaving things to chance, he likes to have plans nailed down. He finds the key to her flat on his key ring and places it in the lock, turns it and lets himself in. The lights are off but she's home, her purse is on the table in the hall. He makes his way to her bedroom, can hear her voice, she must be on the telephone with someone. It is not unusual for her to be talking with someone late at night, conducting a telephone interview across time zones.

"Alice," he calls. He hears her voice quiet and a bit of rustling. "Alice it's Charlie. I'd like to talk."

Charles enters her bedroom, switches on the light and his heart stops. Alice quickly covers herself with the duvet and the man she is with quickly searches out his pants and shimmies into them.

"Charlie, I didn't mean…"

"No, I suppose you didn't mean for me to find out," Charles states, more calmly that he thought he would. "You've made my decision so much clearer," he laughs. "But I never thought you'd resort to slumming with him."

"Wait just a minute," Charlie Grigg shouts indignantly as he makes to get up.

"You two deserve each other," Charles replies, disgust dripping from his voice as he worked the key loose from his key ring. "Here, you need this more than I do," tossing the key at Grigg.


	7. So Close, But So Far

Phyllis Baxter is thankful that she didn't drink last night, that she enjoyed the party at the Frolicking Fox with only a little something fizzy. Elsie knows that there is a story there, something in Ms. Baxter's past but Isobel Crawley highly recommended her, and Phyllis' work has been excellent so she has said nothing. Elsie is confident that Mrs. Crawley's knows her business; that she takes care to place her girls with well suited employers, especially considering that the women her shelter takes in are fragile; that they have been battered, abused, perhaps have substance or alcohol addiction. Mrs. Crawley feeds them, teaches them a skill if they need it, shows them compassion; she provides them a suit or two of business clothing and helps them to find employment. Phyllis been with Elsie over a year and they get on very well together; Phyllis' work ethic matching Elsie's measure for measure.

Morning has come early and Phyllis has already packed her bags, everything she will need for a fortnight, and is helping Elsie to select the things that she will need as well. This will be the first time that Phyllis will accompany Elsie to America, as they make their way on a busy press tour down the east coast. Usually Elsie travels alone, but this trip is more important, the stakes are higher and she needs Phyllis to sit in with her on meetings, to take notes for her. Not that Elsie doesn't remember every single word that is said to her, not that she cannot, will not hold her own in the myriad of meetings that she will take in New York, but Phyllis will take notes, remember specific things that she knows only Elsie will make reference to.

Elsie has not told anyone save Phyllis and her mother that they are to meet Cora Crawley's brother, Harold Levinson while they are in New York. She has not told Beryl, well, because Beryl is Beryl and though she means well, Elsie know that she'll tell her to go ahead with the venture. Take all the cash that Levinson has to offer her. That she should stick away for a rainy day, buy a house, take a vacation, or save her retirement. But Elsie just can't sell out, not that easily and not to the likes of Harold Levinson. He wants the movie rights to her book and wants to make it into a television mini-series. Elsie isn't sure that she wants to see her book co-opted into a mini-series; it will mean a great deal of money, yes, but she knows that it may also mean that the finished product will hardly resemble her novel, especially if Harold has any part of it. She does not think too much of the Countess' younger brother, all brash and outspoken; out for a buck, the fastest and cheapest way that he can make it. And he has made mountains of them turning perfectly nice novels into hastily made vehicles starring American "movie stars" doing awful British accents. She is hoping that if he elects to turn Queen and Country into a movie that he will do it right, team with a British production firm, hire the right people and attempt to make a decent production of it. Elsie has not told anyone, but she is hoping to hold out for a small firm, one who makes nice, period pieces with respected actors and takes care with the production values. She hopes that her agent, Mr. Barrow, can come through with something before she has to make a decision.

"The purple is nice, don't you think?" Phyllis asks, holding it up for Elsie's approval. Elsie nods and Phyllis lays the dress across the bed, folding it carefully before packing it in the suitcase. It is the last thing to go in and she ticks it off her list.

"You've the tickets and the itineraries?" Elsie asks, though she knows the answer.

"I do, they are in my case," Phyllis answers with a smile. "The party was nice last night. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Your Mr. Carson is very nice."

"Now don't you start too," Elsie replied, a little more sternly than she meant to, hearing her mother's voice lace her own. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the younger woman's eyes drift away; Elsie reaches out, touches her arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. He is very nice isn't he? But he isn't mine." Phyllis' smile returns and they natter on about this and that. When the telephone rings, Phyllis steps into the living room to answer it and when she does, Elsie dumps the contents of her handbag on the bed, tosses out what she doesn't need, keeps those things she does.

Elsie hopes that there will not be two weeks' worth of talk about Charles Carson because she has already spent one night thinking about him. She's barely slept; what with the slight headache behind her eyes and the thoughts of Charles running rampant through her mind, she's had barely three hours. She tosses some receipts into the bin, collects the tubes of lipstick, and puts them into her bag, along with her keys, her wallet, the little notebook and fountain pen that she keeps handy. She hears the conversation in the other room, knows that it must be Barrow; he is sending his car for them, to take them to the airport. She had hoped to hear from Charles, but he has told her that he has the test cricket today. She knows that he will be busy and that he owes her nothing. However, she lay awake thinking about him. About his smoky eyes and smooth voice, about his song choice and how she'd nearly made a fool of herself. Of how his fingers felt wrapped around hers, how she might nearly convince herself that her 'At last' had finally come.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Elsie is thankful that the car ride to Heathrow is uneventful. She asks the driver to tune the radio to the test cricket broadcast. Thomas opens his mouth to make a remark, wants ask why Elsie is suddenly interested in cricket when Ms. Baxter distracts him, asks him about his previous travels to New York. Mr. Barrow is regaling Ms. Baxter with tales of his last visit to New York; Elsie looks out the window to keep from rolling her eyes directly in Thomas' face. She doubts that Thomas is as cosmopolitan as he likes to pretend, doubts that he has rubbed shoulders with all famous individuals that he claims. Despite the bravado, one thing she does know is that he is good at what he does; she does not surround herself with anyone who is not.

While Thomas chatters on, Elsie attunes her ears to radio and hears two men, voices that she does not recognize, then a name she does; a man called Charlie Grigg but the man he is talking with is not Charles, but is another man called Spratt. Elsie's heart flutters and she knows that she remembers correctly. Charles told her that he had the test cricket today and that his broadcast partner is Charlie Grigg. All that she can think of is what might have become of Charles Carson.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Charles Carson rolls his feet off his couch, plants them on the floor, and rubs his hand threw his hair and down and across his neck. He is stiff, from the walk home, from sleeping on the couch, from sleeping in his street clothes and shoes. He groans when he remembers what happened the night before, when he found Grigg and Alice together. He had laughed in their faces, as if he expected to find her with someone, and he had, to some degree, just not Grigg. He knows that something has been wrong for some time; he just has not known what exactly was wrong. He still doesn't know exactly what went wrong or when, just that she does not want him and maybe she never has.

Charles toes off his shoes, pulls off his shirt and vest, his pants and trousers, and steps into the shower. The hot water beats down in steady pulses on his shoulders and he instinctively leans against the shower so that the water runs hard against his right shoulder, the one that betrays him. The one that reminds him that he isn't getting any younger, the one that ruined his chances of a long playing career. The scene from last night continues to haunt him, Alice with Grigg and Grigg's smug indignation. Surely, Grigg is to blame. Surely, Grigg seduced her, Charles reasons. He's seen Grigg in action enough. Whispering sweet nothings in a young lass' ear, telling her anything, everything she wants to hear. Buying her things, pretty things all so that he can take her to bed and then toss her to the side when he is done with her and moved on to someone else. How could Alice be so stupid? It must be because of low self-esteem Charles reasons with himself as he shifts in the shower allowing the water to warm his back, easing the tension from it. Her mother always told her that she was no good and she has believed it. Grigg must have played to that, must have played on her emotions. Perhaps if I talked to her, he thinks.

As he washes, he thinks back on the other events of the night. The other woman that he saw, the one who was interested in what he had to say, who he talked with so easily, whose friends he enjoyed being with. The woman who took on the challenge of singing to him, whose fingers wrapped under his felt so natural and inviting. Perhaps, he has only stayed with Alice out of habit and if anything, he is a creature of habit. He remembers something his father told him that some habits are healthy: consideration for others, hard work, decency; while other habits need to be broken: anything that is harmful, that does not make you happy. Alice Neal is a habit that he will need to break; she is habit that has been broken for him, he simply needs to wipe her from his mind. Deep down he knows that Grigg did not seduce Alice; Alice did not need seducing.

He calls in to work with the excuse that he is ill. Charles Carson can count on one hand the number of times in the last seven years that he has called into work ill and even then he had been confined to bed in hospital and a nurse had made the call for him. He knows that Spratt will jump at the chance to sit in his spot, to fill in for him. In a way, that might be sufficient punishment for Grigg; forcing him to broadcast with Spratt. Charles once said that he wouldn't wish Spratt, the little prig, on his worst enemy. But Charles simply cannot face that bastard Grigg with smug lopsided grin; he'll use the fortnight he has due him to look for new employment.

He shaves, pulls on fresh clothes, and makes some breakfast. He feels some better about himself, sees a new start on the horizon. He does not relish starting over at his age, at any age really, but perhaps he can start a new friendship with her, with Elsie. Perhaps that will steady him. Charles goes around his flat, finds the few pictures he has of Alice and tosses them in the bin, thinks briefly, sadly about seeing her smiling face in the bin with the rest of the rubbish and thinks about pulling the pictures out but leaves them. A fresh start Charlie, he thinks to himself. A fresh start.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Beryl Mason shakes the cobwebs out of her head, she had more to drink last night than she remembers, but the pub does not open for another hour and she has two assistants who are on work experience handling most of the luncheon crowd. The menu is not terribly complicated and she trusts them, for the most part, but she is not up for shouting at them this morning, the throbbing in her temple has made sure of that. She is sitting at the bar, adding up some receipts when she hears a tentative peck at the door.

"We're not open yet," she calls. Another peck at the door, this time more insistent. Beryl huffs loudly, looks around for Bill who is nowhere to be found and finally, she pushes away and makes her way to the door. When she sees who is on the other side of the door, she hurriedly turns the handle and ushers him in. "Mr. Carson, come in. How can I help?

Charles slides in, past Beryl. "I wanted to say thank you for the party last night. I enjoyed it very much," Charles replies.

"Ah, well. It was our pleasure," Beryl replies. "But, um, can I help you with something?"

"Well, as a matter of fact you can," Charles answers, his cheeks blushing sweetly, a sight not lost on Beryl. "I'd like to thank Ms. Hughes as well, but I don't know how to get in touch with her." Beryl smiles knowingly but holds her counsel a moment prompting Charles to explain further. "I, well, you see, I didn't get her number and if you don't think that I would offend her…"

"…..Mr. Carson, I highly doubt you would offend her," Beryl teases. God bless this man, she thinks. Poor soul. "I'll happily give you her number but you won't get her to answer."

"Why not?!" Charles asks, sounding less dignified than he intended.

"She's gone to America for a fortnight. Left not an hour ago."


	8. Old Friends

Charles tugs down at his suit coat and adjusts the knot in his tie. He has not searched for new employment in eight years and hates the thought of having to call upon those who occupy the executive offices at 1 Downton Plaza, hates what some might see as calling in a favor. Charles has known the Crawley family for longer than he cares to remember; one of his fondest childhood recollections is visiting his grandfather, who worked as head groom on the family's country estate. A young Charlie Carson tucked in beside his grandfather in the stables, where he learned to brush, feed, and care for some of the finest horses in the county.

Yet today, he is here at Downton Plaza, the Crawley estate that is not made from millions of bricks and mortar, gutters and pipes, founded on hundreds of years of tradition and titles, and filled with priceless artefacts collected over time and space. No, this estate is all steel, concrete, and glass, modern in all of its accoutrements. Offices that have glass panels and computers with flickering screens, modern pictures on the wall, and modern furnishings scattered about. Quite the contrast Charles thinks between the two Crawley estates.

"Charlie Carson, do come in. That will be all, Jane," Robert Crawley booms as he stands from behind his desk. He dismisses his secretary and greets his old friend warmly with an outstretched hand. "How've you been?"

"I've been well. How are Lady Grantham and the girls?" Charles asks as he takes the chair Robert offers.

"Cora is very well. She keeps busy with her charity work and the girls, well," Robert pauses, a laugh, and Charles notices a look of pride sweep across his friend's face, and his eyes light from within. "The girls are growing like weeds. Mary is 14, Edith 12, and Sybil is nine. They keep us on our toes."

Charles laughs easily. He imagines himself with a brood such as Robert's and is pleased for his old friend. He and Robert chitchat about a variety of things, Charles inquires about Robert's mother, Violet, the Dowager Countess who still lives in a house on the country estate. Robert mentions that she splits her time between London and Downton Abbey. That she has a close circle of friends in both places and leaves for the country when she needs to escape her city friends and takes to the city when she needs to escape her country friends. After all the pleasantries are exchanged and family stories told and re-told, Robert and Charles turn toward the door when a familiar voice calls.

"Well Charles Carson, I thought I saw you when I passed by Robert's door," a well-heeled, attractive ginger calls as she strides confidently forward.

"Lady Rosamund, how are you? Well I hope," Charles answers.

"Come now, Charles. I think we can forgo the titles for old friends like us," she purrs, as she leans in for the obligatory kiss on the cheek.

"It is nice to see you again," Charles offers, as Rosamund takes a seat next to his. "I was out of town when I heard about Marmaduke's passing. I am very sorry. I hope that you got my flowers?"

"I did, thank you. You remembered that I like lilies," she demurs, placing her hand atop his. She and Charles share a sweet smile, and a momentary undercurrent of history passes between them.

"Well, I do appreciate your visit, but I suspect this isn't entirely a social call?" Robert interjects, breaking the little moment between his sister and Charles; Rosamund's hand slips back onto the armrest of her chair.

"Um, no. I've come to enquire about a position," Charles begins tentatively. "I was wondering….if your sport media group has any openings…. for a color analyst. You'll find that my references are all in order." Charles hates to ask, hates to come on bended knee as it were but Downton Media is the largest independent television producer in London and he needs to be removed as quickly as possible from his current situation.

"Oh, come on, Charlie, you don't need references," Robert assures him sincerely. "But I would ask. Why are you leaving after all these years?"

Charles twists in his seat; he knows that Robert is right in asking for an explanation and that the Crawleys have had enough scandal in their own right to keep his secrets but nonetheless it pains him to say it aloud. In fact, he has not said aloud what has happened between Alice and him to anyone, yet. He has a few mates, but none of them close and he tried to call on Elsie but that ended quickly enough. He has not told his mother; he knows what she will have to say. And here he sits about to say aloud only what is in his mind, though he knows it to be true.

"It will hit Sarah O'Brien's column soon enough I suppose," Charles begins. "I cannot work with Charlie Grigg. He and Miss Neal have been having an inappropriate relationship behind my back and I just found out about it."

"But you felt you had to be the one to leave your position?" Rosamund asks, shocked and saddened by Charles' confession. She knows Charles to be a good man, kind and steady.

"He would have never left. He has no shame. I haven't turned in my notice yet, but as soon as I have other employment,"

"Well, of course," Robert comments. "You know that you will always have something with us old chap. After all, I would have never completed my maths courses with any success if Rosamund hadn't let me borrow you on Sunday afternoons when you two were at university," Robert laughs.

'Of course, don't worry about a thing," Rosamund chimes in. "We'll work everything out and our publicity team will make this into the biggest media coup since….since….well, since ever," she laughs. "Perhaps we can make it a multi-media deal. A book on the history of cricket, perhaps? A newspaper column? The broadcasts, of course. How does that sound? And Charles, don't worry about Sarah O'Brien's column. Richard Carlisle owes me a favor," Rosamund says a smile in her voice, as she leaves Robert and Charles to work out the details of Charles' employment.

Charles can feel his ears tingle; he is not accustomed to having so much attention and Rosamund is positively ecstatic. For an only child, who spend his youth wandering the Yorkshire countryside often alone, or hours sprinting away on his bike, Charles Carson sees himself at home, finally. Now, if he can push the picture of Alice and Grigg from his mind. The return of a lovely Scottish writer from America will certainly help, he thinks. If only he could share his news with her.


	9. Coming Home

Elsie, Ms. Baxter, and Mr. Barrow all sit across a long wooden conference table from Harold Levinson and his team of lawyers and publicity managers. Harold is desperately attempting to coax Elsie into selling the motion picture rights to her book. She listens as he lays out all of the things that he can offer to her, to raise her book from the bestseller lists to the top of the box office and make her internationally famous. She listens as he natters on, his nasally New York twang sounding a bit harsh in her ears; she's made no secret that she is ready to return to London, ready to begin work on the new book. She is ready, anxious to see if what Beryl called to tell her is true. That something with Charles Carson has changed. That he came to the pub looking for her; that he has been back three times since she has been in America. That he is making friends with Bill; they are finding all manner of things in common from sport to fancying Beryl's cooking. Elsie does not want to read too much between the lines, knows that Beryl means well but might over exaggerate, a little. Nevertheless, she wants to hurry this business along so that she can find out for herself.

She thinks this whole meeting with Harold Levinson somewhat ridiculous. She hopes that he does not think that because of her fondness for Robert and Cora that she will automatically sign over her book to him. One of his minions passes a packet of papers across the table for her and Thomas to look over.

"I think that you will find our proposal very generous," Harold says confidently; but then everything he says, he says it confidently. "We've not just given you the standard package you'll see. Because you are family, we want to make sure that you are compensated well."

Elsie looks up from the contracts just as she hears the word "family" and is about to say something but thinks it better not to, to allow Mr. Barrow to say it for her and he does, right on time.

"If I might say so Mr. Levinson, I would hate to see how you treat those who are not your family members," Thomas drawls sarcastically, as he continues looking over the documents before him.

Affronted, Harold blusters and snorts under his breath before assuring Elsie that he is a fair man and open to negotiation. "I want to make you happy. We can make this very advantageous to all parties concerned."

Elsie places a hand over the papers in front of her; she reaches for the oversized mug with 'Harold Levinson and Associates' emblazoned across it, a shameless advertisement. She takes a sip and then another, carefully considering her words as she does. She does not want to offend Lady Grantham's brother, but she refuses to let him run roughshod over her either.

"Mr. Levinson," she says measuredly, placing the mug down, "How long have we known each other? Four years? Five?" Harold nods in agreement, as she continues. "That being the case, from what I've read, you simply want to give me a pittance for the rights to the book and nothing further. No, residuals, no offer to write the screenplay, or consult."

Harold leans in, steeples his fingers on the table. "Elsie, I am giving you the opportunity to become internationally famous. This movie will be successful. I guarantee it. Think of what that will mean for future book sales and motion pictures." Harold seems pleased with himself, pleased that he has explained to a woman the finer points of a business deal. The smugness oozes off him. No wonder Lord Grantham did not push Elsie to take the meeting, told her to make up her own mind. Elsie Hughes knows that she may not be a titan in the boardroom, but she is not going to allow this man to speak to her in this manner.

"Harold," she says, deliberately using his first name, after all he used hers and in a condescending way. "I know very well that a successful movie could make me internationally famous. However, I put too much of myself into this book than to simply turn it over for a quick profit and see my material turned into something that I don't recognize and would be ashamed of. And who needs fame like that?" Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ms. Baxter's lips turn up, ever so slightly into a smile.

Harold slinks back into his cushioned leather chair. Elsie thinks that it looks a little too big for him, like a son who has climbed into his father's chair but is not quite ready for the responsibility that comes with it.

"Shall we begin again?" Harold offers and with a gracious smile, Elsie agrees.

"For starters, I think that a doubling of the payment to Ms. Hughes would be in order," Thomas begins, starts to scribble some things onto his notepad. "And I think that if she writes the screenplay there is an additional fee for that service. Moreover, I think perhaps, we would like to consult on the project. Perhaps as historical advisor, something of that nature."

Elsie is pleased with Thomas, knows that she has a gem in him. He can be abrasive from time to time and more than a little cock-sure but he is an excellent negotiator and has her best interests at heart. Elsie took a risk in hiring Thomas; she was his first big client, the first client he handled without supervision and over the past five years working together, they have become more than agent and client. They meet every other Saturday morning for brunch; sometimes Elsie cooks, tells him that he needs to put on some weight; other times, Thomas treats her to brunch out, tells her that she needs someone to pamper her. Thomas trusts her instinct when it comes to men he wishes to date, gets her advice on them. She is not judgmental like his mother, never told him that he is an abomination. Elsie approves of him, values him, something his mother never has.

Harold agrees to certain provisions, balks at others. Elsie is affronted at his casting suggestions. "That girl who is all teeth and hair? The one who played a prostitute in that movie last year? Oh, my lord," she sighs. The girl may very well be the latest thing, a box office draw but Elsie highly doubts that she can play her heroine. She doubts that Harold has read her novel, a story of a strong woman who left a repressive home to enter service in London, working her way through the ranks learning every job from lowest kitchen maid to assistant cook. Falling in love with the younger son of the Earl for whom she worked, she followed him to the Crimea when she joined with the Sisters of Mercy as a battlefield nurse. Serving for six months as a nurse, she then moved to the kitchens where she became head cook keeping hundreds of men and the women who cared for them fed. Her lover died in battle and she returned to London penniless. She devoted her life to the convent, spending her days helping others. Elsie highly doubts that the young southern actress with the wide smile and full mane has the chops at this age to pull off this strong English woman.

"And you want to pair her with him? The one who was in that baseball movie a few years ago? I'm all agog," Elsie flusters, folds her hands in her lap. Realistically she knows that the money generated can help her family, can help with Becky's care, and make things easier for her mother. However, her father always taught her that while money can make things easier, self-respect means so much more. Something well crafted, time honored will win out in the end. Elsie nudges Thomas' knee under the table and it is his cue to cut the meeting, leave the offer on the table, or ask for more time, she does not really care which. Thomas has told her of a small but prestigious company in London that has shown interest, that only makes one or two pictures a year but they do things right; their films are respected.

xxxxxxxxx

Elsie is in the hotel lobby waiting for Thomas and Phyllis to tidy up the departing arrangements. They are due at the airport in an hour to catch the flight home. The deal with Levinson left sitting. In the end, Thomas did what he was supposed to do, protect the best interest of his client and Elsie made the ultimate decision to keep the integrity of her work intact. She and her mother have managed thus far to care for Becky and they would continue to do so. There will be other deals, other offers. And she is writing the new book already, scribbled on bits of paper here and there; other bits filed away in places in her memory.

As she waits, she has the hotel connect her with the Frolicking Fox in London. She always lets Beryl know when she is departing; it is an old habit of theirs, to connect just 'in case.' The telephone rings and rings before someone answers.

"Hello," Elsie calls.

"Um, hello. The Frolicking Fox. How may I help?" the voice on the other end answers, unsteadily.

"To whom am I speaking?"

"This is Charles Carson," he answers.

"Charles? Why are you answering?" Elsie asks in pleased astonishment.

"Elsie? Oh, Elsie, how nice to hear your voice," he says genuinely. "I was enjoying a bite to eat and well, no one seemed to be near the telephone and I happened to pick it up and…..I suppose that you want to speak to Beryl…let me get…."

"…no, no. That's all right," she says quickly, a smile spreading across her face. She does not know it, cannot see it, but a smile tugs at his lips too as he holds the receiver close. Beryl is right, he has been coming to the pub, visiting her friends, making them his friends. She feels something tighten in her breast, wonders if Beryl's hunch is correct, if he is rid of that woman, Alice. If something has changed between them; if he caught her out or if they simply called it quits. "We are just about to leave for the airport. I always call to let her when I am leaving and when I will be in."

"Ah. Well, I'll be sure to tell her. Bill told me that you had meetings. Did they go well?" he asks. He hopes that they did, wants her to do well.

"Well, I left the offer. It wasn't the right thing. But I will tell you all about it when I return. And you? Are you well?" She hopes that he is. Their night at the pub has been on her mind ever since; at night she can almost feel his hand on hers. She cannot understand why their brief connection has been so powerful; she is no schoolgirl, is not under illusions of love at first sight, but there is attraction to be certain.

"I have had a change, several changes, in fact, but if you will allow me, I'd like to tell you about those when you return," he asks, his voice low, suggestive. Elsie's stomach drops, she closes her eyes, worries her lip. He stops breathing until she answers.

"I should like that. Very much," she finally replies. They talk a few more moments before Elsie spots Thomas and Phyllis approaching. She makes her goodbye to Charles, tells him to take care. He wishes her a safe flight and tells that he will see her when she returns.

"My, my you seem happy all the sudden," Thomas says appraisingly, happy to see his friend smiling.

"We're going home," Elsie replies as she grabs her handbag and loops her arm through his. Going home indeed.

"I told you that she would call," Beryl says cheerily. "I know that woman like the back of my hand," she laughs.

"You gave up your telephone call for me," Charles replies, a broad smile still evidence of his happiness. "I appreciate that." Beryl pats his hand.

"Just don't hurt her, don't rush into anything," she urges. "Build a friendship slowly. If you do, she'll be everything you think she is. Now, eat your food before it gets cold."

Everything I think that she is, Charles thinks. Well, I'd best be ready. She's coming home.


	10. Right on Time

Elsie did not bring many personal things, things of sentimental value, with her when she moved from Scotland eight years ago. She had packed her clothes and books, a crate of dishes that her aunt had given her, and a menagerie of family pictures. Her prized possessions, the two material possessions that she prizes the most, those things that she cannot bear to part with are the her father's Bible, thick and worn, handed down through five generation of Hugheses and the heavy, black cast iron clock that belonged to her grandparents that sits atop her mantle. The old clock that marked so much of her time, so many happy times spent with her family; the clock that marked sad times as well, whose hands her mother stilled when her father died. Elsie took it with her to university, restarted it to honor her father's dreams for her future, and now it chimes in unison with the knock at her door. Charles is right on time, precisely eight o'clock.

"Hello," she answers, her hand clutching the door handle. She is not nervous but more than a little excited since their conversation yesterday. He has told her that he is free, but not divulged many details and she has not pressed him. It really isn't any of her business at this point and she already knows what Alice has been doing, who she really is behind all of the fancy clothing, the perfect hair and makeup, the posh voice. Elsie knows that she is a pretender, a woman not good enough by half for Charles. "Let me get my bag," Elsie replies as she asks him in and closes the door behind him.

Charles steps to the side, allows her to fetch her purse from the sofa. Charles notices her cross the room, her movements fluid and easy. The creamy yellow dress that she is wearing is tailored, tasteful, and chic; quite a contrast from the sweater and jeans that she wore to the party at Beryl and Bill's place. Either way, dressed up or down, she is just right in his eyes.

He notices the family pictures on her wall and those in frames scattered about the room. He recognizes those who must be her mother and father, sees a family resemblance. She favors her father, he thinks. Another photograph, with two young girls, in matching dresses with matching hair, hanging in curls with ribbons. The elder girl clearly is Elsie; he wonders if the other is perhaps a sister but she has not mentioned a sibling. Of course, they are not open books to one another and she is as entitled to her privacy as he is to his own, he thinks. If things go well, tonight perhaps there will be other nights and days that they will spend unlocking secrets together.

xxxxxx

"This is a marvelous place, Elsie. Thank you for sharing it with me," Charles says enthusiastically, as he sips on his glass of wine.

"When I first moved into the neighborhood I found it quite by accident. I wandered in one day and, well, it sort of spoke to me, if you will," she smiles across her own glass of wine. "I suppose that seems rather silly, sentimental."

"No, well, maybe a little," he laughs. "But I think I know what you mean. It sort of reminds me of what it must have been like in Paris after World War II or perhaps like in the old black and white films."

"Umm, exactly," she purrs. Perhaps he's hit upon something else they may have in common. She wonders if she should take a chance, if she should ask him. She has never been one to shy away from a challenge, to shy away from something she wants. "So speaking of, are you a fan of old films?"

"I am," he says putting his wine glass down "but I don't get out to see many or even put them on the tele much. You see Alice didn't…"

"…..well, neither did Joe," Elsie finishes graciously, lets him off the hook from further explanation. "If you like, there is a cinema not far from here that runs a nice series of vintage films." She is hopeful that he will agree, that she has not gone out on a limb to be turned down. She watches his face to gauge his expression, her own lip worried until she feels his hand reach across and rest on hers. A smile tugs at his lips. He tells her that he would love to; asks when the next showing is. Saturday noon she replies.

"I could pick you up and we could have a nice brunch or something before," he suggests. He notices the look of apprehension on that briefly flitters across her face. "That is unless you have plans already." He wonders if he is moving too quickly. Beryl has told him to build their friendship slowly and he wants to, he does. But he is more than intrigued with Elsie, drawn to her and the electricity between them is real.

"Nothing that I cannot cancel," she assures him. His hand is still on hers and she turns hers slightly so that she can grasp his and squeezes gently. "I'll ring Thomas early. He'll understand."

"Thomas?" Charles asks, his brow drawing into a straight line. He's not heard of this man before and the look of adoration on Elsie's face has him perplexed. "Your son?"

"Oh no," she laughs lightly, draws her hand away and brushes it through her hair, down her neck. "I haven't any children. I thought that Beryl would have told you that." She notices a blush creep up Charles neck and ears; it confirms what she's thought. That Beryl has been filling Charles in on her life, well, certain parts of it at least. "Thomas is my agent. He's a nice young man who thinks of me as a mother, or well, an older sister I suppose. I must say that I am quite fond of him too. We have brunch every other Saturday morning. But I assure you that he will understand." She notices Charles eyebrows return to normal. She thinks that perhaps it is time for her own question. "You've never had any children?"

"Alice was always wrapped up in something or another," he replies sadly, taking a sip of his wine. She watches as he casts his gaze away from her as if he is embarrassed. Wrapped up in herself, or in someone Elsie thinks, the scene of Alice kissing the man at the taxi flitting through her mind. Suddenly, a thought crosses Elsie mind and she hopes that she has not left Joe hurting like this man across from her. She hopes that Joe will find a good woman to marry and settle down with; a woman who will be good to his son, Peter. "But enough about that," Charles says, turning his gaze back to the woman before him "I want to think about the film series and our brunch tomorrow." He is smiling and his eyes, a combination of green, gray, and amber are twinkling. Elsie knows that it will be some time before Alice Neal's ghost is exorcised but she is a patient woman and she believes that this man may be worth the wait.

xxx

The walk back to Elsie's house is pleasant; the spring night breeze is calm and cool. Charles and Elsie have chatted amiably about his new job and the beginnings of her new book. He tells her that Rosamund mentioned something about his writing a book on the history of cricket during his time while his off the air. Elsie offers her assistance with the archival work, should he need it. He accepts, tells her that he has never done anything of the sort before. She promises him that between herself and Ms. Baxter, they can get him started on the right path.

They reach Elsie's door and while neither is ready for the evening to end, both know that they will see each other tomorrow. Charles hasn't told her but he wants to take advantage of the time he has in between the ending of one job and the beginning of another to get to know her before their schedules may conflict.

"Well, here we are," she says, offering him a smile. They are standing just at her door and he is very close, the scent of his cologne fills her senses. He is all oak and leather, classic, and rugged.

"Yes. Elsie," Charles says, his nerves now beginning to show. "You would tell me if I am pushing in? I am a little rusty, you see."

She puts her hand in his arm, smoothes her thumb across it, looks up at him. Poor, dear man. What that woman has done to him, she thinks. "Charles, you've nothing to worry about. I can assure you of that."

He nods. It is so nice to have someone, a woman, that appreciates him; a woman that laughs at his feeble jokes, that shares some of his interests. "Well, then," he manages as he leans in, kisses her cheek tenderly. He takes in the fragrant blend of iris, vanilla, and lily of the valley that mingles just there on her neck as he lingers a moment longer than necessary, but she is not moving away either. When he does move, her eyes are kind and searching and electric all at once and he feels swept up in some heady storm that he cannot name.

As he pulls away, the place where he has kissed her cheek pulsates with sensation and she is unsure of what she is feeling but she knows that she in all the years she was with Joe she has not felt this, not felt this anticipation. It is part intoxicating excitement but there is an subtle undercurrent of caution at the same time that she wants to quash, to push aside. Alice has hurt him so and Elsie does not want to be the woman that heals his wounds for another's benefit. She doesn't think that he is that kind of man; doesn't think him dishonorable in that way. She thinks that if he is interested in her then he is interested, that theirs is not to be some rebound relationship. She sees the look in his eyes, has heard the genuineness in his voice, in his words. And she is ready, ready to see where this man will take her, where they will go together.


	11. To Love Somebody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a song recommendation to go along with this as you are reading: Nina Simone's rendition of To Love Somebody by the Bee Gees. There is a reference to her version in this chapter. You can find it via Spotify, YouTube or your music platform of choice. I highly recommend it.

Elsie bustles about her kitchen, peering into cupboards searching out just the right ingredients. She has decided that this could technically count as their fourth date; she has reasoned out that they have had a luncheon date (courtesy of Alice), a nice night at the Fox, dinner at the bistro, and now brunch. At least that is how she is justifying the feeling that she wants to cook for him, to have brunch at her place instead of some restaurant. She hopes that Charles will not mind, that she will not offend him by her presumptuousness; that he will not think her too forward.

She smiles as she changes the channel from Radio 4 to something she can sing to; she loves to sing while she cooks; it calms her nerves, sets the rhythm for her culinary tasks. She phones Thomas, begs off, and tells him that she needs to cancel their plans. He notes the happy, lyrical tone in her voice, notes that she does not sound sorry at all when she apologizes for waiting last minute. It doesn't take him long to figure out why his friend is canceling out on him, why she is humming along in the background while he assures her that it is all right and there are a hundred other things that he can take care of, things that he has put off. He knows that she is not really listening; he can hear her rummaging around, can hear the radio on in the background. "You know I ought to be offended," he says harshly, just to see how she will respond. "Umm, hmm," she says back. Thomas smiles. Elsie has not been this happily distracted in a while and he does not even need to ask the what, why, or who she is bumping him for. Thomas tells her that Charles (at mention of his name, Elsie asks, "How did you know?") had better be worth it and that she owes him a round of homemade crepes next time.

With Thomas sorted, she'll make it up to him, she's promised, Elsie sets about laying out the items she needs for her brunch with Charles. Fruit, eggs, sausage, mushrooms, cheese, a tomato, the ingredients for American-style pancakes with syrup, and juice. She wonders if he takes coffee or tea in the mornings. She's already had a large cup of tea and will have another with her brunch and orange juice. As she assembles the ingredients, she thinks back to Saturdays on the farm when she helped her mother ready breakfasts for the family. How her mother sang tunes from the war years while she cooked, while she taught Elsie how to organize the kitchen, assemble the family's favorite recipes. She remembers her dad sitting at the long farmhouse table, pipe between his teeth, newspaper in hand, foot propped on one of the rungs of his chair. Becky sat beside him, drawing, or coloring, playing with a doll or two. The easy banter between parents and children filling the air. She smiles fondly in remembrance, is thankful for the childhood she had, wonders if she will have the chance for such a scene with her own husband and children. Knows that she could have had it with Joe, that it was there for the taking, but that it was not really hers, it is the chance, the opportunity for some other woman. Her chance is yet to come she thinks.

The knock at the door comes precisely at 10 and she opens the door to find Charles standing there impeccably but casually dressed in dark jeans, a dark plaid shirt, and a cardigan. Perfect, she thinks for a nice Saturday morning. She asks him in, tells him that if does not mind she would like to cook for them, that she has a nice spot in her back garden where they can enjoy their food. She notices that he seems genuinely pleased, tells her that he does not mind at all, that he is quite handy in the kitchen himself if she would like some help. The pretty blush that flushes across Elsie's face is answer enough for him.

"You don't really expect me to wear this do you?" Charles asks, looking skeptically at the frilly apron that Elsie holds out to him. She laughs, holds the apron against his chest, motions for him to put it on.

"Come on, I dare you," she giggles, catching her breath. Never one to refuse a dare, Charles takes the apron and ties it around his waist. It is one of Beryl's old cast offs, something that Elsie found in the deep recesses of a cupboard drawer. She catches herself before she asks him to take a turn, to model it for her, but it is enough that he looks all domestically delicious.

They set about preparing their meal. As Charles slices the tomato, Elsie notices his attention to detail, that the slices are uniform, that he is humming softly with the radio as he goes about his task. She watches as he plates the tomato slices, delicately centered, and fanned out as if they alone are the centerpiece for their meal. He cubes the cheese, pops a bite into his mouth, and savors it.

"Would you like a bit?" he asks her, as he hold a piece of the cheese forward on a toothpick. She smiles and answers in the affirmative. She reaches up to take the toothpick but he surprises her, holds the bit of cheese just before her lips, feeds it to her. He smiles, a lopsided grin that makes her weak kneed. He turns back to his task while she stands there, just for a moment, struck by such a small thing as this. How this bear of a man, a man she has known only a short while, is gentle, strong, and stirring strong feelings in her.

Charles offers to mix the pancake batter, ladle it out onto the griddle as Elsie tends the eggs. They are standing so very close together in Elsie's small kitchen. Charles watches as she turns the eggs in the skillet, checks them to make sure that they do not burn, that they cook to fluffy perfection. He longed for times like this with Alice, simple, uncomplicated times. Honest and pure, without pretense. Just two people living life in contentment.

Elsie finds herself mesmerized by the man next to her. He has begun to hum along with the radio and she does not know if he realizes it or not. Does not know if he is even aware of the tune, the singer, or the lyrics. But Elsie, whose mind is a steel trap, knows the singer, knows the sultry tones and pangs of longing with which she sings the lyrics. It is the same longing that Elsie has, to love someone, to have the blinders lifted, to find a man who loves her for who she is, who she was, and who she still can and wants to be. Elsie knows that Joe would have been a good husband, treated her well. But she knows that Joe needs someone to help him run the farm and mother his child. Elsie knows that she could have been those things but she wants more. She wants a companion, someone with whom to share secrets, someone to snuggle with under the covers on a cold rainy night, someone to walk hand in hand with through the park, to make Saturday brunch with, some to share life with in every single way; a man who is interested in listening to her problems and her concerns and she wants something she never had with Joe, passion. She glances over to Charles, wonders if he is the man that she has been waiting for. She certainly feels stirrings of something, wonders if he feels the same.

"You know," Charles begins, "every time I hear Nina Simone sing this, well, it just…" he pauses, turns to look directly at Elsie.

"…I think that I know what you mean," she finishes, worrying her lip. "It is a very powerful song of life…"

"…and love. And what good is life without love," he finishes. And suddenly, the air in the room is filled with a static charge and Charles wants to reach out and touch her, even just to touch her hand, to feel her fingers interlace with his or to smooth his thumb across her cheek. He thinks that with Elsie he may be able to have everything that he has missed; he certainly wants the opportunity to find out. He is looking down at her, she is standing there, all high cheekbones, and deep blue eyes that are looking up at him, and plump lips, and he bends down slightly. He wants to kiss her, wants to take a chance, here in the safe confines of her house, but he stops just short. Finds that he isn't quite ready, is worried that he may offend her or that she may reject him, and he cannot face that. He remembers Beryl's advice to take things slow and steady. So instead of pressing his lips to hers, Charles makes some inane comment about burning the pancakes and just before he turns, he notices the ragged breath that Elsie releases and he realizes that he just might have missed his chance, that she just might have accepted his advance.


	12. All The Right Things At The Wrong Time

"So you're going to meet his mother this weekend? Well, that's quite a big step," Beryl's voice is as animated as her hands as they gesture wildly.

"Beryl, it's not quite what you think," Elsie protests "She was a land girl during the war and I am interviewing her for the new book. That's all."

"Yes, but you've been seeing each other for what three months now, and you've been together most weekends and a good bit during the week when you can and," Beryl leans across the table to whisper to her friend, "Elsie, are you holding out on me? When a man takes a woman home to meet his mother….."

"No, there is nothing to report. I swear it," Elsie answers firmly. "You'll be the first to know." Charles is moving at a snail's pace but Elsie will not push him, will not force him. She knows that he will move along when he is ready and she has the patience of Job.

"What does Thomas think?" Beryl asks.

"So what does Thomas think about what or whom," a voice calls behind Elsie. Thomas slides into the booth next to her, bumps her hip playfully, plants a kiss on her cheek. Elsie calls him her "Bonnie faced lad" and asks him how he knew where to find her. "I know everything," Thomas smirks. Elsie knows it must have been Baxter who told him, but she doesn't say anything, allows Thomas to have his moment.

"Charles Carson. What do you think of him?" Beryl asks the young man.

Thomas shifts, reaches into his coat pocket and brings out a packet of cigarette, takes two and puts them between his lips, lights them, hands one to Elsie. It's something he saw once in an old movie; the leading man and leading woman sharing a smoke. Beryl glares at him, tells him that he's a bad influence, that Elsie is trying to quit and he is only enabling her. Elsie almost chokes. She asks Beryl where she learned that terminology and Beryl laughs in return, answers that she heard it on a chat show. Elsie swears it is the first cigarette she's had in three weeks and she only took it because she's anxious over her trip to the country.

"I think that he's all right. A bit of a stuffed shirt though," he says casually, a smirk ghosts across his lips, the two women have forgotten that Beryl asked him a question. "I doubt he's even kissed her properly," he remarks, raises his eyebrows. It's a cue for Beryl to inquire further.

"What?" Beryl screeches out rather loudly before she feels the pinch of Elsie's nails dig into her arm. "You mean to tell me that he hasn't even kissed you properly yet and if that's true then….."

"…..then nothing," Elsie grinds out, glaring at the both of them. "I am not going to discuss my love life….."

"…or the lack of it," Thomas interrupts before Elsie glares at him, her eyes narrowed into tiny fires of burning fury. Thomas holds up his hands in surrender.

"…..First, I'd never tell when or if we'd 'done anything'," Elsie states emphatically, her mother often told her she should have read for the law instead of history. "Second, Charles is a very private man and very traditional. He hasn't spoken much of it, and I haven't pushed, but I think Alice hurt him very deeply and furthermore, I think that he wants to go slowly, to make sure that it's what we both want. Friendship is very important as basis of a relationship and I'm not sure that he had that with Alice." She notes the demanding looks that her friends are giving her. Knows they like Charles but that jury is still out on her relationship with him but she's damned if she's telling them a thing; she'll stare them down instead. She pretends not to hear their collective sighs.

Elsie has the feeling that had she told them the truth, that she and Charles had cuddled, held hands, and he'd kissed her on the cheek at the end of every date, she would have sounded a bit ridiculous. Holding hands and cuddles at her age, but she is content for now, no matter what Beryl and Thomas may say. She sees the prize on the horizon, sees the way Charles' eyes darken when they are sitting on her sofa watching an old movie when he snakes his arm around her, or the way he dries her tears with his handkerchief when she cries as the heroine dies in the final frame. And the way they move together when they go dancing at the new place they discovered is enough to convince her that when something more does happen, it will be worth the wait. The wound Alice caused is still open, still needs to be patched up and Elsie knows that. She is a nurse working to stitch the jagged edges together with every kind word, knowing glance, gentle clasp of his hand, acceptance of what he will give; every day she sees the wound growing smaller.

"Did you have some reason to be here, Mr. Barrow? Or have you just come to heckle me? " Elsie asks pointedly.

"As a matter of fact I do have a reason to be here," Thomas laughs, pushes a manila file folder toward her. "Hopefully, you will forgive me for teasing you when you take a look at this." Elsie opens the file, flips through the pages it contains. "You will find there, my lovely friend, a contract for the motion picture rights for Queen and Country. And they want you to write the screenplay."

Elsie holds one of the papers up, examines it closely. "It's with the firm that we wanted all along and at the fee we wanted," she says, a smile crossing her lips before it spreads to her eyes. She lays the paper down, turns to Thomas, threads her arms around his neck and gives him a kiss. "My boy genius," she exclaims.

"Well, I'm not quite a boy but I will accept genius and I assume that I am forgiven for earlier," he says smugly. While Elsie continues to sift through the papers before he, Thomas drops the proverbial other shoe. "But there is one thing."

Elsie stops what she is doing, looks at Thomas with exasperation. "What one thing?"

"They want a working draft of the script in three weeks," he says quietly. He watches Elsie let out a deep breath.

"Elsie, you know that you can do it. Just lock yourself away and get to work. Go home to your mother's farm like you do when you are on the final push and…" Beryl begins and then brings her hand to her forehead, "Oh, lord." Beryl knows that Elsie doesn't want to leave especially now, now that she has Charles and this uncertain thing between them that is building. She can see it written on Elsie's face, the way her lip is worried, and Elsie is lost in thought. Beryl knows that when Elsie kept quiet earlier, refused to give any details about her 'love life' with Charles that she's serious, in it for the long haul.

"It'll be all right, love," Beryl soothes, reaching out to take Elsie's hand. "Go visit with his mother this weekend and talk with him about it. Something will work out. I promise you it will."


	13. Traditions Old and New

"They want a working draft of the script in three weeks," Thomas says quietly. He watches Elsie let out a deep breath.

"Elsie, you know that you can do it. Just lock yourself away and get to work. Go home to your mother's farm like you do when you are on the final push and…" Beryl begins and then brings her hand to her forehead, "Oh, lord." Beryl knows that Elsie doesn't want to leave especially now, now that she has Charles and this uncertain thing between them that is building. She can see it written on Elsie's face, the way her lip is worried, and Elsie is lost in thought. Beryl knows that when Elsie kept quiet earlier, refused to give any details about her 'love life' with Charles that she's serious, in it for the long haul.

"It'll be all right, love," Beryl soothes, reaching out to take Elsie's hand. "Go visit with his mother this weekend and talk with him about it. Something will work out. I promise you it will."

She will never admit to it but she is anxious, her fingers curl into one another as her hands rest in her lap. He is taking her to meet his parents and she is telling herself that the trip to country is for her to interview his mother for the new book and that Adeline Carson is just one of dozens of women that she will interview. But Elsie Hughes is no fool and no matter how much she tries to let the rational voice in her head take the lead and drown out the louder, irrational one, she knows that Adeline Carson will be the one doing the interviewing. Elsie knows that Mrs. Carson will be sizing her up, to see if she meets the mark, if she is good enough for Charles; Elsie wonders what she thought of Alice, wonders how much Charles has told her about Alice and Grigg; about her. He is such a private man after all. She is close with her own mother, was closer with her father, but doesn't confess everything to her and cannot imagine Charles getting all confessional with anyone let alone his parents, especially in matters of the heart.

Elsie wonders what Charles' father is like, wonders if he is the one to ally herself with if things go badly with his mother. She knows that John Carson is Downton's postmaster, that according to Charles, he keeps a tidy garden and is partial to hunting small game. He has told her that his mother Addie is the Dowager's event coordinator; that she plans all of the large events, corporate gatherings, and coordinates the myriad of community fetes and charity events that Violet Crawley hosts every season. Elsie knows from her own acquaintance with Violet that any woman who works for or with Violet Crawley must, herself, be formidable or she would not last a day and Charles mother has worked for the Dowager for decades. But Elsie has never shied away from a challenge and she has been called formidable a time or two herself. As they pull into the drive leading to Charles' parents' house, Elsie smiles, realizes that she is probably worrying for no reason.

Charles is happy and he cannot help the smile that he is trying so hard to control. He does not want to jinx this visit back home to Downton. Doesn't want to think about what could go wrong so he focuses on everything that is right. Elsie is sitting beside him and the car drive from London has been pleasant; they have chatted about her new book and his return to the television screen in two months when his forced contractual hiatus is over. He cannot stand to listen to the drivel that Grigg and Spratt dole out and hopes that his new on-air partner is nothing like either of them. What with Grigg and his brash backslapping style and joke telling and Spratt with his uppity remarks and nasal delivery, they make him cringe. Spratt never even played sport and Charles wonders how he's even qualified for his job. However, he isn't thinking of that now because all he is thinking of is the woman beside him and how he wants to show her off to his parents, wants their approval even though he is forty-one years old and doesn't need it. His mother couldn't stand Alice, had her sorted from the first time that she met her (she's a good judge of character) and he hopes that she and Elsie hit it off. He thinks of the similarities they share. Neither suffer fools gladly; both have a nip to their tones when exasperated, both know how organize people and things. Charles sees their strengths as an attribute; he hopes that they do as well.

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"Charles, why don't you nip down to the post office, walk home with your dad," Addie Carson asks without asking; it is more of a statement but Charles instantly recognizes the tone in her voice. "Elsie and I have things to talk about. After all she's come for an interview." Addie's phrasing isn't lost on Charles nor Elsie and with a raised eyebrow, he looks at his mother. He does not intend to leave Elsie alone so that his mother could interrogate her. They've only just arrived an hour ago and made the most basic of small talk. Discussed the weather, the congestion of London, the beauty of the Yorkshire countryside. Charles is not certain that leaving Elsie on her own so soon after their arrival will leave him in good stead but when he looks her direction she gives him a tight smile and a wink. Go on then, I'll be fine she seems to say.

"Be nice," he whispers to his mother, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"I always am," Addie replies coolly.

Charles cups Elsie's elbow and gently tugs her close. He places a tender kiss to her cheek and whispers into her ear, "You'll do fine." Elsie knows his words have a double meaning, just as his mother's did.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I've pulled out some of the old family photograph albums. I thought we might start there," Addie remarks as she motions for Elsie to take a seat at the kitchen table. Elsie finds a number of photograph albums and several boxes scattered neatly about. "Some of these have some photographs of me as a young woman, when I was in service as a land girl."

Elsie sets out her tape recorder, fishes in her bag, retrieves a note pad and pen, and records several stories of Addie Carson's experiences as a young woman in the war years, of her life experiences. Elsie is mesmerized by this woman who sits just beside her. A tall elegant woman with a shock of neatly clipped white hair, and piercing blue eyes, Addie Carson is what she had expected. Strength and fortitude, elegance and poise. In her carriage and comportment, Elsie thinks that in another life Addie could have been the one living as the mistress of the Abbey.

Charles makes his way to the Downton Post Office and not much has changed since he was a boy. In fact, the building has not changed since his father's father was a boy; the stone edifice is the same and the notice board is neatly peppered with flyers noting village announcements. Charles stops to look at them; this is one of the things that he misses: the notice board with its colorful flyers announcing church fetes, boys looking for all around work, the notice that the village fair will be coming soon. Sometimes he longs for the quietness of it all, the ability to walk for miles through the countryside and listen to the stillness, to dine on what one has just caught or gleaned fresh from the garden. Downton seems never to change and it comforts him.

He spots his father behind the same desk that six Downton postmasters and postmistresses used before him. Charles's father has held the post for three decades and is, himself, as much a landmark as the pigeonholes that line the wall and the heavy wooden desk behind which he sits. "I was sent to walk home with you while Mother and Elsie get to know one another," Charles calls from the front of the room.

John Carson turns, smiles broadly, and laughs. "Sizing each other up without a referee?"

"That's about it, but Elsie's more than a match for Mum," Charles replies as he makes his way to his father, extends his hand and claps the other along his shoulder. "I'm glad to see you Dad."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Addie opens the cover of a photo album and flips through a few pages. She allows Elsie the time to scan the pages, watches her as she takes in the faces of the members of Charles' family. Both women know that they've gone past talking about the material for the book; Elsie hit the stop button on the recorder half an hour ago. She'll have Miss Baxter transcribe it for her after all the business with the Queen and Country is done and over. Now, the real business of the visit begins. Elsie senses that she is in the ring with a heavyweight, wonders if the punches will be quick jabs coming in short flurries or if one, strong upper cut will be the one that does it. The one that finishes the match before it has begun.

Addie notices Elsie smile when she sees a picture of Charles on a bicycle, all long arms and legs, a bushy head of jet black hair. Reflexively, Elsie runs a finger across the picture, smoothes it across Charles' smiling face.

"His first real bicycle," Addie tells her. "He was eight and as proud as he could be." She watches as Elsie pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and wonders what the young woman is thinking. If she only knew that Elsie is wondering if a son of Charles' will look like the lad in the picture?

"So Charles tells me you've never married, that you have no children." Addie slips the statement in, an attempt to catch Elsie unawares. So, Elsie thinks, the first punch is a jab; a soft one at that. Elsie takes this statement as it is intended, a question, in her stride. She knows why it is asked, knows that Mrs. Carson is on a fishing expedition, wants to know why a woman in her mid-thirties hasn't settled down, found a husband, and started a family. She doesn't fault her for the directness of the question, not after Charles has wasted years on the likes of Alice Neal. Though Adeline Carson has herself been a working woman, she is traditional in her sensibilities of the roles of men and women; husbands and wives; fathers and mothers.

"Yes, that's right," Elsie begins softly. "It's simple, really. The right man hasn't asked and marriage is a long business and not to be entered into lightly. And as for children…children deserve two parents who love and respect one another and who are devoted to the child and each other." If this is a prizefight, Elsie feels that she has absorbed the first blow admirably taken it on the chin. Addie Carson, tilts her head, considers Elsie's answer a moment.

"Are you Church of Scotland or Roman Catholic?" Addie volleys back before adding, "I mean to say are you religious?" Another jab, a little harder this time, Elsie thinks.

"I think that a person can be religious about a great many things, but I believe that you are asking if I am a person of faith, a believer? And yes, I am. I was brought up Church of Scotland," Elsie replies evenly. She notices the pleased look and the same slight hint of a crooked smile that Charles has pass over Addie's face. She wonders if it is because of the witty nature of her answer of because she confirmed that she is indeed a believer, suspects that it is both.

"Faith is quite important to our family and to Charles," Addie is sure to add.

"I do hope that you are pleased that Charles and I have attended, together, some services," Elsie informs her. "But if I can be direct with you and I haven't mentioned this to Charles," she notices Addie's shoulders stiffen and Elsie knows that it's because Addie thinks that she has already begun keeping things locked away from Charles but it isn't. The fact is that this is simply difficult to speak about, she tries not to think of it, but if she is to assure Mrs. Carson that she is fit, that she is a serious contender for Charles' affections, she must share it. Must lay her burden bare, let Mrs. Carson in, show her that she wants her as a friend.

"Only a few people know, my mother, my minister, and my best friend Beryl, but I did have a crisis of faith once," Elsie begins. "Not that I lost faith in the idea of God but when I was twenty I watched my father waste away and die from cancer. I wondered how a loving God could allow a kind man, a decent man, not perfect, mind, but a good man suffer for so long and die in such a horrible way. I stayed away from the church and I was angry. But after a while, I realized that there are things that we do not understand, that we are not meant to understand, and that through my father's suffering he showed me an example of strength that I build on every day. It was part of his legacy to me." Elsie looks down into her lap for a moment. She hasn't spoken about her father's death in years.

"Well," Addie says quietly, her tone decidedly softened. "We may have something more in common than you think. Let me show you something." She turns the page in the photo album that sits in front of them and they come to another series of pictures.

Elsie recognizes Charles right away but in one of the pictures, there is a young girl with him, a lovely little thing, a slip of a girl with a slight frame and dark curly hair. Charles is dressed in a suit and tie and Elsie thinks that he appears to be around ten or eleven and the little girl doesn't look to be more than five and she is dressed in a pretty dress and patent white shoes. She asks Addie who the little girl is and notices the woman breathe in deeply.

"The little girl is Mary, Charles' sister," she answers quietly.

Elsie's eyes narrow slightly and she shakes her head slightly. "Charles hasn't mentioned that he has a sister." She can't believe that he hasn't mentioned Mary, but then she hasn't mentioned Becky either. She hasn't found the right time, wants to make sure that they are on the firmest of footing before she opens that book, draws him into that story.

"He wouldn't," his mother answers, "because she died the year after this picture was taken." Addie lifts the picture from the page, studies it. "Charles and Mary were very close. He was very protective of her. And when she was five, she became quite ill. We took her to doctors and specialists. Like your father, she was diagnosed with cancer. When they found out, the Crawleys were generous. They helped us to provide the best care, but nothing worked. So, we brought her home and made her comfortable. Charles sat by her bedside, held her hand, read her stories, told her jokes, made funny faces. He even performed magic tricks for her. He even took fruit from the bowl in the kitchen and taught himself to juggle. Anything to make her laugh. If another person could will someone to live, Charles surely tried."

Addie looks up to Elsie whose eyes are filling with tears. "And when she died, I was despondent but Charles, he did the same for me. He sat by my beside, held my hand, told me stories, jokes, anything he could do to will me to live." Addie watches as Elsie reaches into her bag, retrieves a handkerchief, and wipes her tears away. "Charles was like that. He is like that. Always a heart for the lost cause. Bringing lost puppies home, nursing birds that had fallen from their nests….. nursing broken hearts. Always trying to make something better. Beneath that big man is a soft heart. Maybe that's why he stayed so long with…."

"…Mrs. Carson," Elsie picks up, places her hand atop the hand of the woman sitting beside her, "we are both forthright women and I want you to know that I am very fond of Charles, very fond, and I will never intentionally hurt him. He is a good and decent man. And whatever Alice was or whatever she did, I am not her." Addie reaches out, rests her hand atop Elsie's. A moment of understanding passes between them.

Charles and John enjoy their walk home from the Post Office and for them it is reminder of when Charles was boy, walking home with his father after school. John always asked about Charles day, quizzed him on his maths while they walked, talked about the local cricket team. John Carson is a friendly but quiet man, circumspect with his words. Many say that his wife is the one for conversation, the one with whom to discuss politics or village affairs but Charles knows better. Knows that his father is keen to sit back and observe; to listen to those around him and then when he does speak, his words are worth listening to not idle chatter filling up space. John is much less likely to be drawn into a war of words over village politics or such; Charles sometimes wishes he had more of this trait, less of his mother's penchant to bluster when upset or pushed.

"So, this Miss Hughes," his father begins, "how do you feel about her?"

Charles looks down at his feet, shoves his hands deep into his pockets. A smile tugs at his lips as he answers. "Dad, she's so very different from Alice. She's lovely inside and out. She's clever, funny, very pretty, but down to earth. She's just….well….I can't wait for you to meet her."

John checks his words carefully, doesn't want to spook his son but he doesn't want to see him hurt again either. "I hope that you aren't rushing into anything," John replied. "Just make sure that you aren't using her to get over Alice. You were with her a long time, Charles."

"I'm taking things slowly, Dad. I wouldn't want to hurt her for the world," Charles answers. John claps Charles on the back, tells him that he cannot wait to meet the woman who makes him smile so.

When the two men reach the Carsons' cottage, they find the sitting room abandoned. Boxes and photo albums are open and photographs and letters scattered on the table. Elsie's notebook and pen are sitting atop the table and her purse is nearby. Charles wonders where the women could be, knows that they haven't gone far because familiar smells from the kitchen are beginning to fill his senses. His dad points to the kitchen and the men tiptoe quietly to not give themselves away. As they approach the kitchen, they hear the sounds of women talking, laughing, sounds of pots and pans clattering. When Charles and John peek around the corner to find Elsie and Addie preparing supper together, being easy with one another, Charles is almost overcome. Elsie looks up from her task and just catches Charles eye, she smiles, and Charles knows that everything went well, that Elsie has held her own.

While John and Addie clear the dishes and wash up, Charles and Elsie cuddle together on the sofa looking through a box of pictures and mementoes from Charles' youth. "This couple. Are they your grandparents?" she asks, studying the picture of the older couple carefully. Elsie is astonished. It is as if she is looking at Charles in black and white, dressed in a stiff white collar, white tie, and tails. The man's expression is serious, glum looking even, but the brows are the same, the nose, and the cleft chin. Elsie finds the woman dressed in black, intriguing, a stern expression with the hint of a smile. Her eyes are piercing, yet kindness is there.

Charles leans into her, over her shoulder, so that so that he can better see the picture. "No, that is a picture of my great Uncle Charlie and his wife Margaret. They were the butler and housekeeper, years ago at the Abbey. I am named for him."

"They must have been very special to your family," Elsie replies sweetly.

"They were," he confirms. "I don't really remember Uncle Charlie. He died when I was two but Dad tells me he was very fond of his namesake." Charles settles back, puts his arm around Elsie. He's pleased that she's interested in his family, his past. Alice was never interested in anything about his family. Charles tells of the butler and housekeeper who fell in love and married later in life, bought a cottage nearby on Brouncker Road and operated it as guesthouse for several years. "Dad says that Uncle Charlie sat in a large leather chair by the fire. And when I was little I would crawl into his lap. He read nursery rhymes to me while I played with his pocket watch." Charles pats his trouser pocket, touches the watch that rests there. "The watch I carry is his."

"You said that you don't remember the butler but do you remember the housekeeper?" Elsie asks.

"Oh, yes," Charles answers with a smile. "I remember her quite well. I was nine when she died. I would often stop by to visit with her, help her with things that she needed. I loved her every much. She always had a chocolate biscuit or a piece of shortbread for me," he chuckles.

"Shortbread?" Elsie asks, her curiosity piqued. "Was she Scottish?"

"She was. Perhaps she's the reason I lo….I have a particular fondness for Scottish lasses called Margaret. Elspeth Margaret," he teases, with a waggle of his eyebrows and a kiss to Elsie's cheek.

xxxxxxxxxx

Charles helps Elsie with her bag, helps her settle into the room she has rented at the Grantham Arms for the weekend. The day has been a good one, the day spent with his parents gone well. They have made plans to meet Sunday, church and then lunch. Charles and Elsie will have the day to themselves tomorrow, all pretense of the interview for the book gone and forgotten; all the weekend plans are sorted. Elsie cannot remember when she's felt so welcomed and at home. Joe's parents lived away and he wasn't close with them but the warmth of the Carson clan reminds her of her own family, so far away it seems.

"I hope that Mum wasn't too harsh," Charles says putting her case near the bed.

"No, she wasn't," Elsie assures him. "She and I found that we have several things in common."

"You do?" he asks turning toward her, his brows furrowed.

"Mmmm, we do," she answers, her lips purse the slightest bit, her cheeks coloring. She moves close to him, reaches up, tugs at the collar of his shirt, straightens it.

"Like," Charles swallows hard. He places his hands on her waist, pulls her into him. Elsie's hands slip gently from his chest to circle around his neck. For all the late night talks over glasses of wine, the cuddling on the sofa at his place or hers back in London, for all of the slow dancing, with hints of what might be, they are treading in deep waters now.

"Well, you needn't know everything. No one needs to know everything," she teases. "But we both care an awful lot about a certain bear of man," she whispers, her lips grazing his ear lobe. Elsie cards her hands deep into the thickness of his hair. She knows that she is falling in love with this man, has known it for some time now. While she doesn't believe in love at first sight, she knows that what she feels isn't lust, oh there is that of course, but this is so more than just affection, which is what she felt, still feels for Joe.

"Elsie Hughes," He rumbles low, deep. "What's gotten into you?" he asks as he kisses the gentle curve between her neck and shoulder. Whatever has gotten into her, he's glad of it; glad of this tide that is sweeping her out to sea; he wants to be swept with her.

"Oh, I don't know," she whispers hot and slow, nipping at his earlobe. "Maybe it's the fresh country air, being out of the city, seeing you with your family. Us." She feels his lips again on her neck as he works down from the soft spot behind her ear to the pulse point of her neck and she knows that standing here in her rooms is dangerous. The back of her knees are against the bed and it will not take much for her to give in.

She is in his territory now, his ancestral home and today has been nerve-racking and exhilarating and the things that he is making her feel are extraordinary. She longs to taste his lips on hers but he has not granted her that yet, but if he does not stop and stop now, she does not know if she will be able to; she will take him with her into the swirling abyss and she knows that once she falls he will follow. She knows that he's holding back and that he hasn't kissed her lips yet because that is so intimate, so very intimate. That once they start there will be no going back and he doesn't want to hurt her and he doesn't want to be hurt.

"Elsie, I…I want….I need to tell you…" he begins and she can feel his breath, ragged, moist, and hot, the heat radiating between them is an inferno and he wants her. He stops, pulls back so that he can see her, so that he can look into her eyes and she sees it, all of the desire and want and need. And love. She knows that he sees the same thing in hers. She knows that it is up to her to stop this. To stop him, because he is not ready for this, not yet.

"Charles, if we don't call if a night, I'm afraid that your virtue might not remain intact," she laughs sadly with a pat of her hand to his chest. And she has rescued him, rescued them both. He nods, a sad smile tugs at his lips. His forehead rests against hers. He unwillingly takes the life preserver and swims back to shallower waters. For now. He kisses her cheek goodnight and closes the door behind him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Saturday's air is crisp around them and autumn is drawing near. Elsie tucks her hand into Charles' elbow, leans into him as they walk. He's shown her the sights, the places of his youth; the lake where he caught his first fish, the cricket pitch where he played as a young man, the school he attended as a boy. Charles is proud to have her on his arm, proud that she is interested in his stories, the tales of his boyhood. But he hasn't told her everything, hasn't told her of Mary, of the true nature of Alice's betrayal. He has kept somethings to himself and he hasn't asked her what she is keeping from him; despite the smile, the sunny disposition, he knows that something is wrong, knows that something is bothering her. He wonders how long she will wait to tell him.

As they cross the village green, Elsie pauses and points, notices Charles' name carved into a slab of marble near a stone monument. Charles smiles, his chest puffs out with pride, and he tells her that yes, that is his name but it his Uncle Charlie's name, really, the chairman of the war memorial committee that erected the monument in 1925. Elsie smiles and comments on the connection between the men. How proud Charles should be to have such a legacy.

Charles brings Elsie to St. Mary's, the village church where he was christened, where generations of Carsons were christened, married, spoken over for the final time. He prattles on about the history of the building, of its medieval roots, and as they pass through the churchyard, for a moment, Elsie wonders if they are going to stop at his sister's grave, if Charles is going to tell her of the sister who died so young. She'll not mention it, not cast an overt gaze looking tombstones trying to find the one with Mary Carson's name. After all, she has not told him everything. Not about her sister, the sweet woman trapped in a girl's mind. And she has not told him that when they return home the day after tomorrow, she will leave for Scotland for three weeks. But she has to tell him that and she has to tell him soon.

"Charles Carson, how nice to see you again," calls a man from near the front of the ancient church.

"Reverend Travis, good morning," Charles calls; his free hand comes to rest atop Elsie's which is still looped across his elbow. He turns them in the direction of the waiting priest. "Reverend Travis please meet Elsie Hughes."

"Pleased to meet you Ms. Hughes."

"Very nice to meet you," Elsie replies.

Charles asks if they can enter the church, he'd like to show his friend the church his family has attended for generations. The good reverend leaves them to it, bids them good day. Charles leads Elsie into the church and they take a seat on one of the wooden pews near the back. He tells Elsie of the church's history, of the ceremonies, christenings, marriages, funerals. He leaves out one funeral; the one held in the summer of 1961.

As they sit here, Elsie knows that she needs to tell him, needs to get it out in the open; he needs to know the truth. Three weeks is not that long she reasons, though the last two days with him, in this place, have shown her that this thing between them is real. That she wants it so much so that she can taste it. But London is too busy, too congested for her to get any work done and it is her routine to return home to finish the project. To wrap herself in the comfortable confines of home.

"Charles," she begins quietly. "There is something that I need to tell you and I hope that you understand." She turns to face him, takes his hand in hers. "I've received some wonderful news. The option for the book was picked up and I am to write the screenplay." She watches as a broad smile spreads across Charles' face, the look of pride in his eyes makes her heart flutter. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth; she hates the part that must come next.

"That's wonderful, Elsie. What good news!" Charles exclaims happily. "We'll have to celebrate. I know just the place," he gushes. "Of course, I know that it will mean a great deal of work but you're up for it, I have no doubt of it."

"Well, that's the thing. You see…." A young couple coming into the church interrupts Elsie before she finishes. All smiles, they are seeking Mr. Travis. Charles points them in the direction of the church office and he and Elsie watch them as they wander off arm and arm.

"Young love," Charles laughs his eyes trailing after them before he turns back to Elsie. "Come on, I've something to show you." He reaches for her hand, tugs her up from her seat.

"But Charles, I haven't told you…."

"…you told me that you've wonderful news. What else is there? Come on, I do have something I want to show you," he adds enthusiastically.

They have been out all day and as Charles happily tugs her through from the church and through the churchyard, she wants to stop him, make him stand still for just a moment and listen. Surely, he of all people will appreciate that she wants to stick to her routine, the thing that makes everything click along, makes everything fall into place. Surely Charles, a man so tied to tradition will understand. They pass several cottages, a shoppe or two, and Elsie wonders where they are going. Charles is humming, a sure sign that he is happy; she's come to recognize this over the time they have spent together.

"Ah, here we are," he says as they come to a stop in front of a nicely appointed cottage. Elsie watches as he pulls a key from his pocket. Charles places the key into the lock and turns it, sighs happily when he hears the bolt slip as it unlocks. He opens the door and then turns to look at her, "Come on, then, lets have a look."

As they stand in the front room, Elsie is mesmerized by the pretty cottage and Charles enthusiasm. Charles takes her from room to room, begins with the sitting room. Points to the old stone fireplace, the roughhewn mantle above it. He points to the mantle clock, tells her that it isn't so dissimilar from the one that sits atop the mantle in her house back in London. Elsie asks about the gramophone that sits on a table near the sofa. Something found in the attic, Charles answers. He takes down the corridor and up the stairs to the bedrooms, shows her each one. One of them is set with a single bed, a bureau, and a chifferobe. Quite serviceable, he tells her. The next room is a study; large desk, heavy bookcases with a few books left behind by former tenants, Charles relates. Elsie is drawn to book, runs a finger across it, an old, vintage copy; she picks it up. Dracula, she reads from the spine. She smiles. She has something in common with someone, somewhere she tells him. They come to the final bedroom, the master. The center of the room is dominated by a lovely, commanding four-poster bed, which Charles tells her is an heirloom, that it belonged to the original owner. That it has always been with the house. Before Elsie's eyes settle too firmly on any of the other attributes of the room, on the fresh blanket spread across the bed, the flowers neatly arranged in the vase on the bureau, Charles whisks her back down the stairs, down the corridor and into the kitchen. He looks positively triumphant. "And just there," he gestures toward the back door, "is a lovely back garden."

"Charles, this is a lovely cottage but why are we here?" Elsie finally asks. Of all the places that she has seen today, she has understood the meaning behind each of them. The cricket pitch, the lake, the church; even the school. But this house, while lovely, she's at a loss as to why they are visiting this place.

"Earlier you mentioned my Uncle Charlie Carson," he replies with a smile. "This is the cottage that he and his wife bought when they married. When my aunt died, she left it to my dad and he and Mum have rented it out over the years. The last tenants moved out weeks ago."

Elsie watches as Charles flexes his hands into fists, then spreads his fingers wide again, pats the waistband of trousers. She's noticed this before, noticed that he does this when he is nervous or excited.

"I know that this isn't the same, that it isn't your mother's farm," Charles begins, feels the words tumbling out clumsily. "But Argyll seems so far and three weeks isn't really that long but it seems…..well I don't want to test the adage about distance making the heart grow fonder….so I was hoping that you might…..that you might substitute a farm in Argyll for a cottage in a quiet village."

Elsie stands before him, eyes wide open, mouth gaping. She is stunned, astonished. For someone who is never at a loss for words, she is, at this moment, lost for them.

"Well," he asks quietly, expectantly. And suddenly she realizes that she has not said anything, not a word, and her hand flies to her breast, a beaming smile across her lips.

"It's perfect," she says, happy tears in her eyes. "I was so worried. I didn't want to be so far away and…oh, Charles, this is the most thoughtful thing that anyone has ever done for me." She looks around her and suddenly realizes that everything in the cottage has been cleaned recently, that there are fresh cut flowers on the kitchen table; she remembers the flowers in the vase upstairs, the crisp pretty blanket on the bed. She crosses to the kitchen counter, finds a basket with sandwiches, apple tart, a bottle of wine. She laughs, shakes her head a little. "I thought that you said there'd been no tenants for weeks?"

"There haven't been," he answers as he closes the gap between them. She feels his breath on the back of her neck and he is wrapping his arms around her. Her head spins with the surprise of it all, of the day, of this grand gesture, of his wanting her so close. "The cottage is furnished and I had some helpers while we were taking our little tour this morning. I was hoping that you'd say yes." He is kissing the back of her neck and she is leaned back into him.

"You'd have felt foolish if I'd said no," she teases.

"But you didn't," he growls as his kisses become more insistent, he nips and tugs at the soft freckled skin of her neck.

"No, I didn't," she sighs as his hands begin to roam.

"I told you that I knew just the place to celebrate," he smiles against her skin.

"Charles?"

"Mmmm"

"How did you know about Argyll? I never told you about going to my mother's farm," Elsie asks. She feels Charles' lips leave her skin. She already knows the answer; there is only one answer to this question. She turns in his embrace to find him looking at her, a bit unsure. "I suppose I ought to be angry with the both of you for conspiring behind my back," she says letting him linger for a moment.

"Are you?" he asks sheepishly, his hands still tight around her waist.

No, she answers quietly, a subtle shake of her head, her lip worried.

"You'll stay?"

Yes, she answers, a nod of her head. Then, finally, in stillness of the moment, in the house on Brouncker Road, in the kitchen of another Charlie and Margaret, Charles leans down and kisses her. Reverently, gently, his lips meet hers in a tentative first kiss. Charles has made them wait so long for this, the sharing of themselves so intimately, that she wants to remember every moment. Every soft caress of his lips against hers, the pull of his lower lip between her own. He pulls back for a moment so that he can look at her. So that this moment is forever etched in his memory, so that no matter how long he lives this image of her, all cream and rose and sapphire in one glorious breathing figure of woman, will be what he remembers.

Charles pulls her closer, his hands wandering; her fingers card through his hair as he kisses her deeply and completely. The way a man kisses a woman when she consumes him, when he thinks of nothing but her.

"Charles," Elsie asks, pulling away slightly breathless. "I'd like to stay here tonight."

"Of course. We'll collect your things from the hotel and bring them here," he replies quietly. "You'll have everything you need."

"I already have," she replies. Elsie tucks into his embrace. She is so very happy that this man is taking care of her. For so long, she has taken care of herself and before that it was hard work on the farm and the hard work that sometimes comes with Becky; but Elsie is thankful that someone now is thinking of her, taking care of her.


	14. These Arms of Mine

With every creak and groan of the cottage, her heart flutters. Her mind is playing tricks on her because she thinks that it is his knock at the door. That perhaps he is turning the key in the lock, easing the door open, quietly slipping inside the sanctuary of their home. The thought that he is returning from London to be with her, to offer her companionship, to love her, to be with her preoccupies her. She imagines him bringing her cups of tea while she is working and when she needs a break from it all, that he will hold her hand while they walk the gardens of the village. And in the quiet of night, he will hold her close, bare skin to bare skin, tracing his fingertips along peach skin, worshiping every inch of her body.

She banishes these thoughts during the day, she is disciplined enough for that; knows that she has to work so that when he returns they can make the most of their time together. But at night, when the harsh light from the lamps is extinguished and only soft moonlight peeks in through the bedroom window does she allow herself to live the moment of his return. Every night in her dreams comes a steady knock at the door and she hurries to open it, and finds him standing there. In her waking hours, she thinks that she is too old to hurry to the door, fling it open, pull him inside, and kiss him for all she is worth. To not let him catch his breath, to not say so much as a "Hello" or a "Welcome home" but to cover him in kisses of adoration and affection. Since that first night they spent at the cottage, tangled in the crisp cotton sheets, their bodies stretched across the beautiful antique bed, and his hands and lips burning a hot trail across her body, his homecoming is all she has been able to think of.

As she lies in bed, the house still smells of fresh linens and shortbread. She cannot remember when she has felt so domestic, when she has wanted to have the house spotless and food baked awaiting a man's arrival. She doesn't know if it is the change of scenery, the domestic feelings that the cottage stirs in her, the ghosts of those who came before, or that this place feels like it is theirs, hers and Charles, together; a private place that they share between them. Perhaps that is the difference.

Just as house quiets, she hears it, not the creaking of the house or the branches of a tree scraping against the window, but a knock at the door. She pushes the sheet away from her body, reaches for her dressing gown, and makes her way down the corridor and toward the door. She smoothes a hand through her hair, growing longer now, her experiment with closely cropped locks over, and settles her hand on the door handle. She wonders who is at her door at this time of night. Charles is not due until tomorrow. She takes in a deep breath and steadies herself.

Then she sees him. Standing before her. Suitcase in one hand, two boxes in the other. And instantly her arms are reaching up, hands sliding up his chest, over his shoulders, around his neck, and she is tugging him down, pulling him into a blistering kiss.

"Don't tell me you've missed me," he asks smugly when she finally releases him.

"I have Mr. Carson. Very much. And it costs me nothing to say it," she admits. Ten days has been too long by half and she has missed him. In this moment she can think of nothing except the warmth of his embrace, the smell of amber, wood and leather that fills her senses when he is near; the lingering image of his bare chest, broad and smooth hovering over her.

She realizes that she has not let him in, that he is standing in the doorway, still holding his bag and two boxes. She laughs a bit, pats his chest with her hand, and welcomes him into the front room of the cottage.

He notices the midnight blue silk dressing gown and matching pajamas that she is wearing, realizes that perhaps he has awakened her. He had packed quickly, thrown some things into a bag, and booked the last train from London. That he has managed to find his way to her amid the chaos in his brain is a small miracle.

"I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow," she admits. "But I must say finding you on my doorstep is a nice surprise."

He sets his bag down and the two boxes on the table near the door; scrubs his hand across his face and then through his hair. "Oh, Elsie. I'm sorry, you were asleep. I didn't think…." he apologizes as he runs his forefinger along the sash of her dressing gown.

She thinks of a risqué comment, wants to invite him to join her in bed. The sheets are still warm and there are fresh flowers lending their fragrance to the room. However, she doesn't because she senses the he is tired, that something isn't quite right.

"How is London?" she asks taking his hand and leading him to sit on the sofa.

"I had a visit from Alice," he says quietly, his eyes not meeting hers.


	15. Come To Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter perhaps a little Katie Webster: "When Something is Wrong With My Baby." Then, depending on how fast a reader you are, about half way through, a little Otis Redding: "Come To Me.

"How is London?" she asks taking his hand and leading him to sit on the sofa.

"I had a visit from Alice," he says quietly, his eyes not meeting hers.

Elsie remains quiet, because if she speaks she is afraid she will say something ungenerous. She has wondered how long it would take before Alice came crawling back, groveling at Charles's feet, asking him to take her back. She has known women like Alice Neal. Women who throw a man away only to come back when they are lonely or the grass isn't greener somewhere else. Can imagine all sorts of scenarios of how Alice probably threw herself at Charles. A tight skirt and low cut blouse. Contrite words spoken through pouting red lips. Flattery dripping from every pore. She has known women like this. Women who have ruined a good man.

"She called asking to see me." His words are soft, quiet, and shame-filled. He has not wanted to think of Alice let alone speak to her face to face. He certainly does not want to speak her name to Elsie. He is ashamed of the time he spent wasting on her. She's made a fool of him and everyone knows it.

He is waiting for Elsie to say something. To say anything, but she sits silent before him a picture of composed fury, her eyes narrowed, jaw set, and lips drawn into a harsh line. He hates to have sprung this on her but he is not a liar, never has been, and is not good at hiding things. Elsie is bright and she will find out eventually. He reasons that it is better to come out with it.

"And I suppose that she said that she is sorry, apologized for her behavior." She bites off every word, clipping every syllable.

"She did," he answers lowly. It kills him to admit this, especially to her. "She said that she felt that she had treated me badly. That she regretted it. Regretted how things happened."

He can see the muscles in Elsie jaw tighten; they've not really spoken of Alice and Grigg, the fact that he caught them in bed together.

"Elsie, you know that I…..I found…Alice and Grigg together?"

Of course, she knows; she saw them herself leaving a hotel together the day that she and Charles had lunch together but she's never told him; she could never hurt him that way. It is not for her to tell.

"And?" she manages.

"And, she apologized for that," he answers.

"But there is more, isn't there. I don't imagine that she wanted to meet with you just to apologize for having treated you badly. She easily could have done that over the telephone." Charles refuses to meet her eye. Elsie stands, walks to the window that looks out onto the garden. She pulls back the drapes and looks out because she cannot look at him. "Don't tell me that she's pregnant?"

Her question is met with piercing silence.

"I thought that you told me that she didn't want children? That she was always so very careful to ensure that she didn't….."

"….she was but…"

"…..I suppose she wants to marry?" she interrupts. It usually is not her way to interrupt others when they are speaking, that is more Beryl's style than her own. Elsie is more of a listener; that is what makes her a good friend, a confidant.

"Well, that's the thing," he replies quietly. "That's why she wanted to speak to me."

"I cannot believe this," she mumbles under her breath.

"The reason that I am telling you this, that I met with her, is because I didn't want you to find out from someone else. People can be cruel, try to cause trouble," he adds, his voice a mere whisper. His shoulders are slumped, his head held in his hands. If she only understood the mix of emotions are stirring within him since he met with Alice.

"Letting me down gently then," a question and statement rolled into one. She lets the drapes fall back into place and folds her arms tightly across her chest as she turns back to face him. She is looking at him squarely, wants to see his face when he says that he is leaving her and going back to Alice.

"What?" His head snaps up and his eyes instantly lock with hers.

"If she thinks that I am going to give you up without a fight then she is sadly mistaken." Her voice cracks around the edges, her words coming fast and sharp.

Instantly he is on his feet and at her side. He cradles her face in his hands.

"No, oh no, Elsie. No. Oh, I've made a mess of this," he stammers. He brushes her hair back, over her ear. "Elsie, she did want to apologize to me. But she is with Grigg. The baby is his. They are getting married. She wanted to tell me before I read it in the papers."

Elsie lets out a breath, looks away for a moment, and shakes her head before looking back up at him, her eyes filled with tears. She feels the simultaneous urge to both strangle him and kiss him. But relief washes over her. Finally, perhaps Alice Neal is out of their lives and maybe the wound over his heart can be stitched up, healed for good.

"Don't frighten me like that ever again, Charles Carson," she admonishes him harshly, fury in her voice. "I mean it."

He wraps her up in a tight embrace, pulls her into his body, her arms still folded tightly across her breast. "I promise." He kisses her hair, breathes in the clean scent of it. "I owe her a debt really."

He feels Elsie hold her breath, knows that she wants to say something. That he owes Alice Neal nothing. That she and Charlie Grigg deserve each other and that whatever hell they put each other through will be their just deserts.

"She showed me what real love is." He feels her try to pull away but he holds her fast, tightens his grip on her. "She showed me what I have in you. That's why I rushed home to you. You were all I could think of on the train."

He feels her melt, the very breath leave her lungs; the weight of his confession breaking her in all the right ways. Her arms unfold and wrap him.

"She never loved me, Elsie," tears lacing his words. In this moment, her heart breaks for him that the woman he loved never loved him. Perhaps it is time that she makes a confession of her own.

"But I do. I love you Charles," she whispers softly against his chest.

He pushes her back just enough so that he can see her face, worried lip and tear-filled eyes. He sees something there. Something that he has not seen before. Not when they have been cuddling together, not when they have been hand-in-hand walking through the streets of London or the gardens of Downton. Not when the soft satin of her skin was pressed against the roughness of his in the quietness of the upstairs bedroom. It is affection, adoration, and sincerity, a deep and abiding love. She is a woman who does not just love him but is in love with him.

"I believe that you do Miss Hughes," he replies, his thumb wiping tears from her cheeks. He leans down, captures her lips with his own, and gently teases them apart. He kisses her softly, tenderly. There is no rush, no need to strip bare, no need to throw the covers from the bed in a heady rush of passion. What he needs now, what she needs now, is tenderness.

"Elsie, whatever I felt for Alice doesn't hold a candle to what I feel for you. I thought I knew what love was but I didn't. Not until you. I was a fool." He kisses her again, this time with passion and though he hasn't said the words, this is the moment, the moment she will remember when Charles Carson, in his own way, confessed his love for her.


	16. Someone To Watch Over Me

Charles lies awake thinking on all that has happened; on all that has been said and unsaid, done and left undone. Thinking that Charlie Grigg has moved his things from his dingy one-bedroom flat into Alice's ultra-modern one; that they are making space for the baby that will come in a matter of months. He wonders how Grigg took the news; if he thrills at the prospect of becoming a father, of being tied down with a baby and Alice. Charles wonders how long it will last before Grigg tires of the domesticity of it all and runs away from it, leaves Alice alone for some bright young thing.

He looks to the woman lying next to him. Measures her curves, the lines of her body, counts the freckles on her skin. He thinks on last night and how she met him at the door; how her kiss burned through him like a wildfire burning down any doubt that she has missed his being with her. How she had said that she would not give him up without a fight; his Elsie, flashing with ferocious passion. His heart flutters when he remembers that she told him that she loves him. He knows her well enough to know that she would not have said it if she did not mean it. He thinks that he should have told her that he loves her. That he should have said the actual words but he hopes that she understands that he does love her. He has tried to show her, laid offerings at her feet, when words sometimes are merely words. After all, Alice told him that she loved him often enough and look at what she has done. No, he is determined to show Elsie that he loves her and the words themselves will come soon enough. Then they will carry weight behind them.

Elsie is awake, but does not move. She is staring, looking off into the distance, not really focused on anything, because she is caught up in her own wonderings, her own thoughts. Remembering how broken he was the night before. Remembering, how Alice broke tender stitches loose, the wound gaping open again, and the pain spilling out afresh. How the tears in his eyes when he told her that Alice had never really loved him, made hate flare through her for the first time in her life. She wonders how someone could be so cruel as to hurt such a good and kind man. She hopes that he does believe her when she told him that she loves him, hopes that he knows it isn't something said in the moment or to make him feel better. She thinks back to the tender way he loved her, the way he made her come alive, and she hopes that he knows how very much she loves him.

"Elsie," he asks. He is unsure if she is awake. He traces his finger across her shoulder, her neck, mesmerized by the graceful lines of her body. She lies with her back to him, they are close, but not touching, and he watches her lying still. Quiet.

"Mmmm," she answers.

"Why did you never marry Joe?" As he says it, he thinks it probably wrong to ask her this, now, as they are lying here together, exposed. But then again he feels always exposed to her, always laid bare before her, his heart and soul held within her gentle hands.

She closes her eyes slowly, breathes out then in again before she opens them. She has wondered when he would ask this question and is surprised that he has not asked it sooner. She wonders if it is because he does not want to talk about the intimate details of his life with Alice. Or perhaps if he is afraid of her answer. She does not mind answering, wants him to know her reasoning, and hopes that it will set his mind at ease. She hopes that in giving up her secrets, he will give up his own and heal his wounds completely.

"A few years after I came to York, I met Joe and we dated a while. But then I had the chance to move to London. It meant a promotion and I didn't want to give it up."

She feels his fingers fall away from her shoulder, his hand softly drop to sheet between them. She hopes that she has not sounded like Alice; hopes that he does not think that she strung Joe along, used him to mark time. She turns to face him, traces from his brow to his jaw with her finger, his hand settles on her hip and she skims her hand along his arm.

"Charles, my father had no sons to carry on his name or his legacy. He wanted me to have a different life and he scrimped and saved to send me to university," she explains. "When he was dying he made me promise to finish my studies and get a firm footing for myself. To stand on my own two feet. I swore to him that I would. So I moved to London and Joe moved on. He married a nice woman but, it didn't work out. Four years ago he called on me again…"

"You began seeing one another…"

"Yes. He was in York and I was in London. We saw each other as often as we could but he wanted more," she reveals.

"And he proposed. But why you didn't accept."

"In many ways I wanted to accept. Beryl had met and married Bill and other friends were all paired off. But Joe wanted a wife to help him run the farm. Charles, I'm not that farm girl anymore and it wouldn't have been fair for us to pretend otherwise." She feels Charles's hand begin to massage her hip, slide around to the small of her back.

"Life has altered you, as it has altered me," he says quietly. He gently tugs her closer and her hand slips over his shoulder into the curve of his neck.

"You wanted to marry Alice," she says more than asks.

"At one point, so much I could taste it," he admits. He hopes that it doesn't hurt her to hear it said aloud but he knows that she must know this; that she is a clever woman, intuitive, and it would be wrong to lie to her.

"She hurt you deeply. I'm sorry for that."

"But that's all in the past now. She's marrying Grigg and I have you," he says, pulling her flush against him. Flesh and bone pressed together, hearts laid bare, he feels more exposed to her in this moment than he did last night when he made love to her. "Elsie, we are good together aren't we?" he asks as if he needs her to convince him.

She leans in rubs her nose against his and smiles, smoothes her hand across his cheek, and brushes the hair back over his ear before she kisses him softly. "More than good," she murmurs against his lips before she captures them again, passionately.

"I want to take you somewhere today. Somewhere I haven't been in a very long time," he says quietly over the rim of his teacup.

"My, my. I'm intrigued Mr. Carson," she says smiling, reaching across the kitchen table to pat his arm. She has seen most of the places in Downton that are special to him but for such a private man, Charles is full of surprises and she is willing to let him take the lead.

"Won't be a tick," he replies as he pushes away from the table. He gives Elsie's temple a gentle kiss and stops to collect the scissors from the kitchen drawer. She watches as Charles makes his way out to the garden. For a moment, she starts after him but pauses. Instead, she stops and watches from the window. She watches as he walks among the flowerbeds, bending and inspecting blooms. Selecting and snipping only the finest specimens. She has an inkling, a feeling that these stems, are not for her but for another who is close to his heart, perhaps the first to break it. The first to shatter it into a thousand pieces; the one person that he could not save, the first set of circumstances he could not change.

Charles and Elsie walk quietly to the churchyard, his hand gripping tightly the bouquet of flowers picked from the garden on Brouncker Road. Elsie's hand is looped through his elbow and they have not spoken but the silence is all right, welcome even. Charles walks with purpose, determination; his stride long and confident belying the storm inside, the mix of emotions that he feels.

They pass dozens of ancient stones with the names of Downton's families. Elsie notices the stones of babies who have died within hours of their birth, those of who lived long lives, those of the men and women killed in world wars; the stones of those who died during outbreaks of epidemics. They come to the graves of Charlie and Margaret Carson and Charles stops a moment, places a single rose on his aunt's grave, reflects on his family, and they move on. A few steps away he pauses, his feet glued to the ground. His feet feel like lead weights and his legs like paper straws that cannot lift them. He has not been to this part of the cemetery in decades and he wants to turn away and leave.

"You can hold my hand if you need to feel steady," Elsie offers quietly. She sees the cause of his trouble. The thing that has him stalled and unable to move forward. The small piece of stone that this mountain of a man cannot move past. He reaches down and gently takes her extended hand. She notices a tear in his eye though the corner of his mouth twitches up in a feeble smile a little at her offer.

They step forward a few paces until they are standing at the edge of the grave and Charles kneels to place the bundle flowers against the bottom of the headstone. Elsie feels his grasp on her hand tighten as he is crouched and suddenly she sees his shoulders begin to shake. She wonders when he last acknowledged the reality of his sister's passing. She wonders if Addie's grief was so profound, so all encompassing that Charles pushed aside his own grief to deal with that of his mother's. Elsie tugs on his hand, urges him up, and to a stone bench a few steps away.

"She was my sister," he confesses wiping his eyes. He has not let go of Elsie's hand, does not want to lose contact with her. "I've not talked about her since the day she died."

"Tell me about her," she encourages him.

"She was very pretty," he begins with a watery smile. "She was bright and playful. She was very clever, Elsie. Even though I was older, we were mates, she and I. My dad told me to watch out for her, always make sure that she was safe. That nothing harmed her. But….."

Elsie laces her fingers his and now she realizes what his mother meant when she said Charles tried to heal broken things, why he'd stayed with Alice so long, why he'd punished himself trying to repair something that couldn't be repaired.

"….I tried Elsie. I tried but she died anyway. It was cancer," he finishes sadly hanging his head in despair.

"Oh my darling man, you mustn't blame yourself. You were just a boy," she says as she slips her hand from his and pulls him into a strong embrace. "Charles you cannot punish yourself for that." He cries against her shoulder for a long time while she talks to him of family love, of the good man that he is, and of circumstances that no one can change no matter how hard one tries. He tells her of his sister of the tea parties she hosted with him as guest of honor, how he taught her to make paper airplanes and play gin rummy; of days he sat by her bed while she sleep in slumber so deep she seemed lost to some other world before she was gone.

"I don't know I if ever told you that I have a sister," Elsie mentions quietly.

"I thought that your mother was the only family you have left," Charles asks, looking up at her. He sees tears in her own eyes and knows that she too has a story to tell. One of deep hurt and pain.

"Which may be because that is what I wanted you to think. My sister Becky was born…. She is not quite right in the head. While my father was alive, he and my mother looked after her, but when he died…."

"There was only your mother and you," he guesses correctly.

"Precisely. Becky is a dear sweet soul but a woman locked inside a child's mind. Becky doesn't really understand much beyond what makes her happy or sad. When we were growing up people could be very cruel and like you, I was very protective of my sister. I am still. Because of that, I don't share about her with everyone."

"Who knows about her?"

"Beryl and Bill of course. Thomas and Phyllis. Joe and now you." Charles wipes a tear from her cheek.

"Thank you for sharing her with me," he replies, smoothing his fingers through her hair. "Well, I think that we've cried enough for one day," Charles musters a tiny smile through his own tears. "What say we go home?"

She is standing in the doorway, her shoulder pressed against it, and watches as Charles fidgets with the radio, the dial crackling as he adjusts it finding just the right station. A long moment passes before he notices her and when he turns, he cannot help but gawk like a schoolboy, his jaw slack.

"What's the matter Mr. Carson? Cat got your tongue?" she teases, a purr in her voice.

"I, um, I was just….there's a great oldies station….Elsie, you're beautiful. Where did…."

"You honestly didn't know what Beryl sent in those boxes?"

"No," his voice is a mere whisper. The sight of Elsie standing there in a white silk and lace nightgown and matching boudoir slippers has him stunned and awed. He extends his hand and she walks toward him, the nightgown moving with her, hugging her in all the right places, revealing dips and curves, crests and valleys that he is eager to explore. She takes his hand and he drapes it over his shoulder, takes the other, and clasps it firmly. "May I have this dance, Miss Hughes?"

"You are an old romantic, Mr. Carson," she replies, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. She presses her cheek against his and closes her eyes, breathes him in. She thinks back on the day, on his revealing his deepest pain to her, how she wants to erase it for him, wants to be the balm that soothes his wounds.

"Remind me to thank Beryl when I see her next," he whispers hot against her ear.

"Let's not talk of Beryl Mason right now, Charles," she replies as she gently tugs her hand from his and wraps it around his neck.

She cards her fingers through his hair, her nails leaving trails through his thick locks. She feels him slip his fingers under the strap of her nightgown, he slips it from her shoulder, and kisses her there; his lips soft, warm, tender. His kisses trace up her shoulder to the curve in her neck and she sighs in pleasure, their bodies swaying against the melody of the music and against their own rhythm, the ancient dance of man and woman.

Her mouth finds his ear, kisses down the length of it and she whispers to him endearments, desires; her tongue caresses his earlobe, gently tugs there. His hands smooth down her back, burning hot across the bare flesh until they reach soft silk covered flesh and he pulls her closer; he knows that she feels how much he desires her, needs to be with her. She tilts her head back, finds everything in his eyes that she is seeking and he captures her lips in a blisteringly passionate kiss.

"I need you, Elsie" he confesses through a haze of heady passion. And she knows that he does not just mean physically but in every way that a man needs a woman, in every way a person needs someone.

"I'm here Charles," she tells him. "I'll always be here."


	17. What Is And What Can Be

The vivid colors of autumn begin to fade marking the changing seasons and with the slight nip in the air Christmas is just around the corner. In the four months since that weekend at Downton, since they shared their burdens and uncovered their deepest secrets, Charles Carson cannot remember when he has been happier.

He watches as she moves into the kitchen and begins preparing food, arranging it just so. He watches the fine movement, the glide of her hands and the slip of her wrists, the gentle, long curve of her fingers as she moves with grace and purpose. Charles watches as Elsie silently ticks off a mental checklist of everything that she is to have done before their guests arrive. Our guests, he thinks. Charles realizes, not for the first time, that they are settling into a pattern. Quiet evenings with Elsie writing or reading, him reading the newspapers and catching up on news and sport. A shared bottle of wine while watching telly, her legs outstretched, feet in his lap. Long walks through the park and Sunday brunch. Entertaining friends together. The only things they do not share are lingering mornings, the comfort of someone to come home to every evening, a shared address.

To say that she hasn't thought of it, hasn't lain awake at night in the stillness of a lonely bed and wondered what it would be like to have him beside her every night, would be a lie. Elsie has wondered; she wonders now as she frets about in the kitchen and knows that he is just there, laying the table in the refined way his mother taught him. To see him so easy now, so at home, in her home. Her heart clenches at the thought that they might one day have a home together. Stolen weekends at the cottage on Brouncker Road is as close as they have come.

"Shall we play strict rules?" Elsie inquires as she places the game box on the table and settles in beside Charles.

"Are there any other?" Charles asks innocently as he places the dictionary on the table beside him. Elsie cannot help but smile as she casts an eye to the giant tome pinched from her bookshelf.

"Well, when Elsie and I shared a flat together, we sometimes played a different version," Beryl grins mischievously. "I doubt you will find any of those words in your dictionary there."

"What she means to say is it degenerated into a version where Beryl began to see how many naughty words she could spell and dared me to match her," Elsie replies as she turns the tiles over, places her palm on them, and shuffles them about.

"Who won?" Charles asks innocently as he begins to select the requisite number of alphabet tiles.

"You obviously haven't heard Bee when she's upset," Bill jokes before his wife jabs a playful elbow in his ribs. Bill collects his letters, arranges them on his tile rack. D*H*C*W*I*K*E

"Why are we even talking about this? It is undignified," Elsie protests. She places her letter tiles in alphabetical order on the holder. M*U*S*T*A*R*D She attempts to sneak a peek over to Charles's direction; she interested to see if he does the same, or if perhaps he arranges by consonants and vowels.

"Yes, but who won?" Charles asks again as he arranges his letter tiles and angles his tile rack and covers it with his hand so that Elsie's prying eyes cannot see the letters he has collected. S*C*O*W*L*R*Z

"Usually, we were well matched until your lady friend here began to spelling in Gaelic and then, well, it was all over," Beryl laughs boisterously while arranging her tiles. A*E*I*X*M*Z* *

"Elsie Hughes, you are full of secrets aren't you," Charles laughs, bumping his knee against hers under the table.

"That's me. A woman of mystery if ever there was one," she replies with mock seriousness.

Bill rummages into his coat pocket and retrieves his pipe and a small black pouch; he looks to Elsie, and asks a silent question. He knows that she has quit, put the cigarette packages in the bin months ago, and he doesn't want to tempt her. She nods, gives him the all clear and he gently lays out his tobacco things.

Charles watches as Bill lays out a pinch of sweet cherry tobacco on his handkerchief, rids it of any clumps, and then fills the bowl of his pipe. As Bill tamps the tobacco in the bowl of the pipe and then lights it, swirling the match over the top of it, and then puffing slowly, gently, patiently, a snapshot of a memory flashes through Charles's mind. A singular snapshot of a tall, robust man, with a great shock of thick white hair, crisp blue shirt, braces, dark pants, and polished shoes. He is standing by the fire lighting his pipe. Charles stops for a moment and wonders if the figure is from a dream or a photograph he has seen. Perhaps something that his parents may have told him but then he remembers the setting, the room, and the nearby window. The man with the pipe, his Uncle Charlie, at the house on Brouncker Road. So, I do have a memory of him, he thinks, a smile tugging lightly at his lips.

"A penny for them, darling," Elsie says softly as she gently caresses Charles arm, rousing him from his daydream.

"Oh, um, yes, just a nice memory of my uncle," Charles fumbles shyly, placing his hand atop Elsie's.

"So how is the movie going Elsie? Any news?" Bill asks, taking a puff from his pipe.

"Hurry up only to wait," she replies, voice tinkling with laughter. "Thomas tells me that's how these things work. They wanted the script in such a hurry but now they are busy sorting a place in the production schedule, a director, the crew, and they've yet to cast it. Though they have some idea of the major roles." Elsie plays her letters. "Mustard!" she rejoices. "I used all of my letters. Now, how many points is that?" Charles counts the spaces and calculates the points, writes the tally next to Elsie's initials on the game sheet while Elsie collects more tiles.

"Oooh, who do you think they'll cast as the main characters?" Beryl asks as she places her word. "'Mixed'. Add it up Charles," she said sounding every bit as if she is issuing an order from her kitchen as she chooses four tiles.

"I don't know," Elsie admits. "They've mentioned the girl who does all those period pieces. You know the one who dresses all peculiar at the premiers. And I'm not sure about the male lead."

Bill places his tiles to spell 'Wicked' and Charles tallies his score and records it next to his name. "So how is your new broadcast partner, Charles? Settling in all right?" Elsie watches as Charles's shoulders tense and his jaw hardens slightly. She doubts that Beryl or Bill have noticed, Charles is too well mannered to let them see his discomfort but she has noticed. He has complained every day of every week for the past four months about his new on-air partner and she wonders what he will say now.

Building off the 'C' in 'Wicked' Charles spells out 'Scowl' and Elsie bites her lip to keep from dissolving into laughter. "When I first met him I thought he was there on work experience. If I could only be so lucky. He still has spots on his face. Young Mr. Kent has a lot of learning to do and I am not much interested in training a young hobbledehoy who is more interested in how his hair looks than his reporting of the game," Charles replies sternly. Elsie and Beryl look to one another and stifle a giggle that only serves to make Charles brows knit together more harshly.

"Sorry mate," Bill sympathizes.

"So you're going to the Crawley Christmas party this year?" Beryl asks as she watches Elsie carefully place her tiles on the game board. Charles looks skeptical and stops just short of opening the dictionary, fingering through the 'D' section to see if she spelled a real word. He knows that even if she didn't, he will likely lose the battle.

"We are," Elsie replies taking a sip from her wine glass, then leans over Charles making sure that he totals her points.

"I'm catering again so I'll be rowing with the other slaves," Beryl huffs dejectedly placing her tiles down to create a modest three letter word.

"And making a small fortune so I'd not complain," Bill reminds her. Beryl shrugs and nods her head in agreement. Though she protests, Beryl is just as content to remain in the background, directing the whole affair from the kitchen. She knows that she can depend on Thomas and Elsie to fill her in on any of the gossip that her wait staff misses.

"Goodnight," Beryl says kissing Elsie's cheek. "Next time is at our place."

"Goodnight," Elsie replies. "Drive safely." Elsie closes the door focuses on the word our. More and more she wishes that she and Charles could say our place, collectively. The cottage felt, still feels, like our place, she thinks as she brushes her hand through her hair and sighs. Charles is busy clearing away the wine glasses and she looks at him relaxed, dressed in his plaid shirt and dark jeans, his dark, curly hair unruly. He is doing the mundane things and she can almost see it. See him as her husband, helping to clear after supper. She can see him as the father of a son who grows to be tall and broad like him, with her blue eyes and quick wit. Or perhaps as the father of a daughter, who with dark ringlets bouncing as she runs across the room, tugs Charles' trouser leg, and asks him to play tea party.

"Elsie?" Charles calls from the kitchen and when she does not answer, he turns around to find her looking out the window into the night sky.

"Now, who's lost in thought?" he asks quietly, wrapping his arms around her. She leans back into him, relishes the warmth of his embrace.

"Just thinking," she answers quietly. She will not push him on this. They have known each other for nine months, been together for just barely eight and perhaps it is too early to think of it. He has told her that he is over Alice and she believes him. She has pulled, lead him to change in some ways, helped him to heal. But she will not push the next step; Charles must do that when he is ready.

"Tell me about it?" He feels her breathing slow. Most times, he feels at a loss with women, with her in particular, though she can read him so very well. She knows when to push him, when to step back, let him be. But to him she is a puzzle. A beautiful menagerie of pieces with jagged corners and smooth edges that fit together with such complexity he thinks that if he lives a thousand years he will never figure out how to put them all together.

"It's nothing, really," she explains. He pulls her tighter into his embrace, rests his chin against the side of her head. Tonight it is his turn to let her be. To let her talk when she is ready.


	18. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain

Warm water cascades down her back, drips from the auburn strands of her hair as soap bubbles pool at her feet. Steam rises around her as she bathes, allows the warmth and steam to soothe away the tension in her shoulders. The day has been long and Elsie has been hunched over files, newspaper clippings, scraps of paper scribbled with notes, and photographs in the attempt to weave together the stories of countless women and their lives in service during the war. Her mother’s and Addie’s stories intersecting with dozens of other young women who served on the homefront bring their sacrifices into agonizingly clear focus for her.

Elsie thinks of the Christmas season ahead, mentally ticking off the list of presents she needs to purchase, the task becoming more difficult with each passing year. She sighs, a little melancholy, because William is fifteen and taller than his father and no longer the little boy who ripped through presents happy to find toys under the tree. She wonders what on earth she will buy for him, thinks that she should perhaps ask Charles.

She considers the Crawley Christmas party that is coming in a few weeks and how it will be so different from the ones she enjoyed back home. How she will rub elbows with high society, with the peerage. How men dressed in white tie and tails will offer punch served from ornate silver punch bowls and how she will drink it from delicate crystal cups. How every room in Cora Crawley’s home will be decorated with the most exquisitely expensive decorations that money can buy.  
But, she thinks that none of that can compare with the Christmases spent in Argyll, when she was a girl and her father was alive. There was no high society, only family, her mother and her aunt leading the singing of carols around the tree, their rich harmonies filling the house with warmth. The Hughes and MacCrimmon cousins stringing together paper garland to hang from the tree alongside handmade ornaments passed down through the generations. Those simple times are the Christmases that Elsie fondly remembers, but this Christmas is her first with Charles and it is time for new traditions. She smiles at the thought of it and considers asking him if he would like to travel to Scotland for holiday instead of luncheon with Bill and Beryl.

She slides the soapy cloth along her body and then instantly the smile fades as her face twists into confusion. She sets the washcloth on the side of the tub and places her fingers along the side of her left breast. Elsie presses lightly and then more firmly feeling the edges of a mass that lies just beneath the skin. She’s not felt it before and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach replaces the happiness that she felt moments ago. Her hand drops away for an instant before she lifts it again, splays her fingers out, gauging the size and shape of the mass. She cannot deny what she feels protesting and pushing back against the pads of her fingers.

Not one to frighten easily, she is worried at the possibility of what she’s discovered. Slicking a comb through her hair, she looks at herself in the mirror and the woman staring back at her looks the picture of health which is why this is all so confusing, so unreal. She can hear Dr. Clarkson’s voice in her head; each year he lectures her on the importance of self-exam and the physical signs to look for. She sees none of those now, but she knows what she felt. She tries to calm herself, tries to remind herself that she’s not had any symptoms, not felt ill, that perhaps she is imagining the worst when there is no reason. Yet.

Taking her dressing gown from the nearby hook, she slips into it and pads into her kitchen. Searching out a bottle of single malt and a glass, she settles on the sofa and pours herself a healthy measure. She sits alone, in the darkness, and thoughts flood back to her at a dizzying and painful pace. She thinks of her father who, at an age not much older than she is now, lay dying a slow and agonizing death in the back bedroom of their house. She imagines her mother and Becky and she wonders who will take care of them; who will take care of Becky when she is left all alone? She is all they have left; one day, all Becky may have. She then thinks of Charles and the happiness that they have found together, she tries not to imagine his face when he learns of this. If she tells him. She knows that he will fear the worst and right now she is worried enough for the both of them.

* * *

 

She is not sure how much time passes between the first drink, between the time she settled on the sofa, and when the telephone rings. She reaches over and picks up the receiver.

“Hello,” she answers, her voice coarse, smoky around the edges.

“Hello, pet,” Charles replies excitedly, words tumbling from his mouth. “I hope I haven’t disturbed you but I wanted to let you know that I might not be able to see you tonight.”

“No?” Elsie takes another sip from her glass. Part of her desperately wants to see him, but another part is glad that he’s not dropping by.

“You see I’ve been called in to do the late news,” he explains. “Malcolm Foster phoned in ill and I’ve been called in as relief.” Charles sits at his desk, fingers a small blue box, turning it repeatedly. He flips the top open, examines the contents inside, and caresses a finger across it before snapping the top closed again. “I could come by, I suppose, but it would be late,” he adds.

“No. I’ve had a long day myself and you’ll be tired,” she tries to console him, tries to mask the sinking feeling that she has had all evening.

“Well, if you’re sure?” He is not sure. He wants to be with her all the time, wants to live all of his days and nights with her, all of his early mornings and late nights. He has known for some time now and he hopes that he’s done the right thing by going ahead with his plan. He hopes that she is agreeable when he broaches the idea with her.

“I am,” she assures him. She hates lying to him. She does not consider herself a liar, perhaps there are things that she does not say, but she isn’t a liar. She has told the truth. The day has been long and the night longer but that is not why she’s put him off. What she has not told him is that she needs some time alone, time to think, to process what she’s discovered, and what the implications might be. “I’ll be watching though,” she adds.

“Elsie?”

“Hmmm….”

“Good night.” He pauses a moment, the line goes silent between them before he quietly adds, “I love you.”

She cradles the telephone to her chest as tears slip down her cheeks. A simple telephone call is how he tells her, how he finally says it after all these months. A simple declaration. No fireworks, no special occasion, not said in the heat of passion, but he says the words simply and plainly as if it is the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

 

“Elsie….I came as soon as you called.” Beryl pulls Elsie into a hug just as Elsie dissolves into tears. “What on earth?” she exclaims.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you out so late. I’ll be fine,” Elsie sniffs, dries her tears, and pulling away gently. Beryl knows that something is deeply wrong, that Elsie would never call asking her to come over, never ask her to leave work for no reason.

“I’m going to put the kettle on and you’re going to tell me all about it,” Beryl says as she pats her friend’s hand.

“I’ve found a lump,” Elsie tells her flatly. She takes a seat at the kitchen table and fidgets with the edge of the tablecloth, picks at the corner of it, smoothes wrinkles that aren’t there.

“What?”

“I’ve found a lump in my breast, just tonight while I was in the bath,” she explains. Beryl fills the kettle, puts turns the knob to put the heat to it. She sets out the tea things and then takes a seat across the table from Elsie.

“What are you going to do about it?” Beryl asks.

“Don't know,” Elsie all but whispers, still looking down at the tablecloth, her hands fidgeting nervously.

“Well, I do know. Tomorrow you'll make an appointment with the doctor and we'll see what he's got to say.” Beryl’s tone indicates that there is no room for disagreement, no need to argue another point of view.

“But what if it's….” Elsie’s mind flies back to the thoughts that have plagued her all night and she finally looks up, catches Beryl’s gaze.

“If it is, and I'm not saying it is, it's best to know now.” Beryl reaches across the table and takes Elsie’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I suppose so,” Elsie admits, her face crumbling as tears begin to flow once again. Elsie casts her gaze to the floor, upset with herself for jumping to conclusions. The kettle begins to whistle, its piercing cry unsettling. Beryl gives Elsie’s hand another squeeze before releasing it as she makes her way to the screeching kettle.

“Now, look. You'll not be alone for a minute. But we have to get it seen to,” Beryl reassures her matter-of-factly.

“And then there is Charles,” Elsie sighs.

“Have you told him?”

“No. I don’t want to worry him,” Elsie answers quietly. Beryl shakes her head in disbelief. She knows that, unlike herself, an open book, her friend is a private person. Elsie Hughes is a woman who does not easily share her confidences, does not like to impose on others.

“Don’t you think that he has a right to know?” Beryl pours two steaming cups of tea and pushes one toward Elsie, nods her head in suggestion for her to take it.

“Not until I know something for sure. There is no need to alarm him.” There is a long pause before she adds, “Beryl, you mustn’t tell him.”


	19. My World Is Empty Without You

All types of women fill Richard Clarkson's waiting room. Young mothers, arms filled with squirming babes who refuse be placated; their mothers anxious to keep them from disturbing everyone else. There are older women, grandmothers likely, smiling and cooing at the babies, and casting sympathetic eyes to their mothers. These women, with grey hair earned from years of the hard work of being a wife and mother, who sense their age catching up them, now wistfully remembering what it was to be once a young mother. There are other women, young women, bellies heavy with child, chatting excitedly with one another about their impending arrivals and some appearing to be due very soon. They compare birthing techniques, the choosing of baby names, the decorating of nurseries, and their excitement is quite contagious. And then there are women like Elsie, sitting stiffly in uncomfortable chairs, their voices quiet, eyes cast down to a six month old, tattered magazine or perhaps a book that they've brought with them that they aren't really reading. Their eyes gloss over the pages that they turn occasionally, mechanically. Instead, their minds focus on questions to ask the doctor, trying desperately to remember every detail, every piece of information that he might need to know.

She does not hear her name the first time the nurse calls it but the second time, she startles just a bit. She closes the magazine she has been reading and places it on the nearby table, and gathering her handbag, she smiles weakly making her way to the nurse who smiles back kindly and directs her to an examination room. As they walk down the corridor to the exam room, the nurse makes small talk and Elsie tries to concentrate, tries to make the appropriate responses. She doesn't wish to be rude, the young woman is perfectly polite, but Elsie is in no mood to talk about how her day is going because if it were going well, the appointment secretary would not have needed to squeeze her into the schedule today. However, she holds her tongue, bites back the sharp retort that is forming.

"Now Ms. Hughes, if you will remove everything from the waist up and put on this gown, Dr. Clarkson will be in with you momentarily." The nurse is all smooth efficiency; an economy of motion as she reaches into the cabinet, retrieves a gown, and handles it to Elsie. She smiles again before leaving the room, the door clicking closed behind her. Elsie hears the clipboard that the nurse was holding slip into the acrylic slot on the door.

She begins the process of undressing. Working the buttons loose, she removes her blouse, folds it, and places it on the chair that is nearby. She pauses a moment, looks at the empty chair, and Beryl's words come flooding back You'll not be alone for a minute. Yet, here she is. Alone. In a cold, sterile examination room, undressing for an uncomfortable assessment, so that a doctor can speak to her in cold, clinical terms about something so very personal. She loosens her bra, lets it slide down her arms, and away from her body, places it with her blouse. She stares at the empty chair as she slips into the flimsy cotton gown. You'll not be alone for a minute. Don't you think that he has a right to know? She knows that she should have told him, that Charles should be with her, steadying her, offering words of encouragement; they should be facing this together.

"Good morning Elsie," Dr. Clarkson eases into the room. The good doctor is all cool confidence wrapped in an attractive package. He and Elsie met at a Burn's Night party not long after she moved to London, a mutual friend introducing them. Their friend thought them well matched, the handsome blonde doctor from Edinburgh and the attractive ginger from Argyll. But they chit chatted about home and Richard passed her his card. Turned out that he was seeing a nurse at the time and he and Elsie only became friends.

"I must say that I was concerned to see your name on my schedule today. It isn't time for your annual check-up." Reacquainting himself with her case, he flips through the pages of her file. There are no instances of anything out of the ordinary. She has been the picture of health thus far excepting the occasional bout of cold or flu. He takes a seat on his swivel chair and begins his questioning. "So, what's brought you in?"

Elsie blinks hard once or twice and takes in a deep breath before she blurts it out. "I've found a lump in my breast. I was in the shower and well…. I…. there it was in my left breast…. and here I am." The words tumble out all at once and very matter of factly. She is not sure of what she has said and if she has made any sense at all.

"Well, then. Have you noticed any other symptoms? Have you felt ill or tired?" The doctor makes notations in her chart, scribbles that she cannot read, doesn't understand.

"No. Not that I am aware of. I can't swear to not feeling tired sometimes, but nothing out of the ordinary," she replies. It is the truth; what with seeing Charles and working long hours on the new book, her first non-fiction enterprise, she is burning the candle at both ends.

"I am going to conduct a preliminary examination and we will go from there," Dr. Clarkson says kindly. He steps to the door, calls out into the corridor for a nurse to join them.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

His office is very much like the man himself, warm and masculine. Tones of grey and blue, balanced with dark wood, leather and suede, a splash of tartan. His grandfather and father's old medical instruments and books carefully placed behind glass cupboards, accent the space. Elsie at once feels calmed by it all, ensconced in the cosiness of the room and secure in the knowledge that her friend comes from a lineage of healers. Yet the anxiety of waiting for his verdict is almost unhinging. She finds herself fidgeting, her hands in her lap, she wrings them in nervous futility. She looks at her watch; it seems an eternity since he examined her, palpated her breasts, pressed against the rounded, rubbery spot that she discovered days earlier.

Just as she is ready to seek out someone, to ask where on earth Dr. Clarkson has gotten off to, she hears the door handle turn. Her stomach sinks.

He takes a seat behind his desk and flips open the manila folder that holds her chart, the prognosis for the rest of her life. He scratches a few things into onto a form, scrawls his signature at the bottom before he looks up to her.

"Well, first things first," he begins reassuringly "I am going to refer you for a series of tests. You'll report to this office," he pushes a piece of paper towards her, "in a couple of days and they will perform a scan and then a doctor will perform a fine needle aspiration. A biopsy."

"How will they do that?" she asks.

"With a very fine needle and a syringe. Usually three samples will be taken to make sure that enough tissue and fluid has been obtained. It will be analysed and we should have the results in a few days." He watches as her face turns into a twist of worry.

"You think that it may be cancer?" she asks matter-of-factly.

"It may be cancer, but I am fairly certain that it is not. What I believe that you have is a fibroadenoma. What I felt certainly meets the criteria. The lump is smooth, rounded, like a marble under the skin. These are benign lesions but must be dealt with since they can grow and sometimes distort the breast. Some women have several of these. Many women only have one. There is another type of lesion….a phyllode, that can be benign but can also be cancerous and the only way to tell the difference is through mammogram and biopsy."

Elsie tries to process the information. She has always been one for knowing everything she can about a subject that interests or concerns her but this, all of this, these words are rattling around in her brain. Benign. Malignant. Must be dealt with. Sometimes distort. She finally gets a handle on what he has told her, which for the most has been the least severe of the blows he could have delivered. However, she focuses on fairly certain. Then it strikes her that he has suggested surgery.

"And I'll need surgery?"

"Yes," he replies kindly. "Either way, even if this is a fibroadenoma, it will need to be removed. In women under thirty-five…." He notices her stiffen, her lips draw into a sharp line. He hates to have mentioned her age but she must know the facts and he is not one to hold back, he knows that she will appreciate his forthrightness. "In women under thirty-five we often watch these if they are small, if we are positive that they are a fibroadenoma. But in older women, we advise waiting no longer than six to twelve months to remove the lesion. Most women prefer to have it excised right away."

Elsie looks down at her feet, nods her head. "Well, then."

Dr. Clarkson makes to stand, rounds the corner of his desk, and helps his friend to her feet. "We will take it one step at a time."

__________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Charles has barely touched the beef stew and sandwich that he ordered and Beryl Mason is beginning to take offense. He has occupied a spot at her bar for the better part of a half hour, saying hardly more than two words and looking like a lost puppy.

"You know, I'm beginning to think that you've gone off my cooking," Beryl calls to Charles and when he does not answer, she smacks the back of his hand.

"What? Oh, sorry," he apologies. "I've just a lot on my mind." Absentmindedly, he turns his spoon over in his stew several times, staring down into the bowl. "I'm worried about Elsie. She's not herself." He looks up to Beryl and finds concerned, sympathetic eyes. When she does not say anything, the silence becomes awkward and he feels compelled to continue. He lays the spoon down flat across the saucer the bowl sits atop. "She's working too hard. I told her that she needs to slow down. She's not eating much; just pushes her food around on the plate. She's not sleeping well either. She's distracted." He pauses a moment before he confides something to his friend. "I want to help…. but she's so…I just don't know how…"

Beryl reaches across the bar and takes his hand in hers. "She has a lot on her mind, love. Give her time. Just stand by her. That's all we can do. Once we know the results…"

The blood drains from his face and his jaw goes slack, Charles brows knit together in fierce confusion. The results. Breath leaves his body as he quickly puts the pieces together. Not eating, not sleeping, and distracted. He remembers that she's even politely resisted when cuddling on the sofa became too amorous. When he made to caress her breast, she gently moved his hand to her hip, and then claimed that she was tired. He thought nothing of it, believed her because she looked it, circles under her eyes, her voice tired, cracked around the edges. That she is awaiting test results and Beryl's words to Just stand by her strike terror into his heart. "Beryl, how ill is she?"

__________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

She has changed into her nightgown and slippers, twisted her hair high atop her head. She pours herself a cup of tea, nicks a biscuit from the nearby tin. As she settles on the sofa, she thinks back on the day's events. She's a well-read woman, she read the material that Dr. Clarkson gave her about the biopsy, and resigned herself to the fact that it had to be done regardless of whether it hurt or not. She watched as the doctor placed the slim needle into the offending nodule, and pulled tissue and fluid into the syringe. In a way, she is amazed at the science of it, amazed that the diagnosis of benign or malignant can be deduced from the sampling of drops of fluid on a glass slide.

When the knock sounds at the door, she is surprised. She is not expecting anyone. She has given Ms. Baxter the day off and she knows that Beryl is busy with the evening crowd. She has told Charles that she had a series of meetings, which is not technically a lie, she just did not tell him with whom. She left him to assume they were perhaps interviews for the book or something to do with the filming of For Queen and Country instead of testing. She has told him that she needs to spend the evening working, readying a preliminary chapter of the new book for the publisher's approval.

The knock gets louder, more insistent and she puts down her teacup and goes to answer it. Wrapping her fingers around the door handle, she opens the door to find him standing there.

They face one another; her with wide eyes, her lip worried. A look of remorse and instant realization that he knows the secret that she has been keeping. Him with tears in his eyes, a hard-set jaw. His face a mix of anguish and fury.

"She told you?" she finally manages, her voice small, quiet, laced with a hint of anger.

"I prefer to say that she put me out of my misery," his tone two parts hurt and one part resentment.

She steps aside, invites him in. She sits on the sofa and motions for him to take a seat beside her. He waves his hand; his brows knit together, his lips turned into a deep frown. He prefers to stand. She supposes that she understands; he is hurt and angry because he had to learn of it from Beryl and she is furious that Beryl has mentioned her condition to him.

"Why did you not tell me? Did you not think that I would want to know?" It is an honest question and demands an answer.

"I didn't want to worry you." She knows that her answer sounds trite and it is partially true. However, it is not solely the truth; there are more selfish reasons behind her reasoning.

"You didn't want to worry me?" His voice booms in anger as he paces the room. He scrubs a hand across his face and through his hair. "What do you think that I've been doing? You're not eating or sleeping. You don't want me to touch you. Do you not think that I would be worried?"

Her silence is infuriating and he stands directly in front of her before he demands an answer.

"Did you ever plan to tell me?"

"There is nothing that you can do about it." She knows that she should not have said the words the moment they left her lips. She looks away, ashamed that she has hurt him. When she looks back to him, she sees hurt play across his face that brings tears to her eyes.

"I don't want you to see me as a sick woman," she all but whispers.

"But you don't know that it is cancer," he reminds her. "From what Beryl told me, Dr. Clarkson is fairly certain that it is not." His voice has quietened; he is calmer because he sees the distress in her face, her body.

"That is what he said. I am so frightened Charles. The doctors expected my father to live and he didn't. My mother's life was torn into pieces. I don't want that for you. So if it is cancer, find someone to share a life with. You don't want to be stuck with me." At this, Charles sits beside her, takes her hands in his.

"That's the point," he replies quietly but with conviction.

She looks at him with confusion. "What is?"

"Whether we have five months, five years, or fifty. I do want to be stuck with you."

Her brows draw into confusion as she shakes her head, trying to make sense of it all. "I'm not sure if I am hearing this right….."

"You are if you think that I am asking you to marry me," he tells her. He gently pulls his hands free from hers and reaches into his pocket to pull out a small blue box. He carefully opens it to reveal a diamond ring. "I've had this ring a fortnight. Ms. Baxter was quite helpful in giving me your ring size. I was hoping to give it to you Christmas morning but if you'll have me….."

Elsie's hand flies to her breast as tears flow freely down her cheeks. "This isn't because?...….You've had it a fortnight?" She wants to make sure that he is asking her to marry him not out of pity or some misguided sense of duty.

"A fortnight," he confirms with a smile. "Would you like to call the store for confirmation?" he teases.

She shakes her head and blinks away her tears. She is moved that this man, this kind and good man, can forgive her misguided sense of duty. The sense that she would push him away because of pride, because she does not want pity, because she wants him to be happy. He has shown her that she is what makes her happy.

"Well?" he asks. She realizes that she has not accepted yet and she laughs through her tears. She reached out to cup his face, leans in to kiss him.

"Of course I'll marry you," she whispers against his lips.


	20. Drown In My Own Tears

He feels Beryl's hand on his arm, a gentle squeeze reassuring him that she is beside him, that she has been beside him, both of them, throughout this ordeal, and that she will be throughout this too. He cannot tear his gaze away from Elsie though, cannot bring himself to pull his eyes away from her face, which at last is so calm. She has made it through the worst of it. She has come out on the other side.

He studies the hollows of her cheeks, the fine lines etched into lips parched from fever, and eyes resting closed, sunken into the sockets. Auburn hair, not her own, fringe falling over her forehead, to disguise the devastating nature of her illness. He shakes his head; she is a shell of the woman he loves.

"It isn't right," he finally stutters. "They told us it was benign."

Beryl leans into him and rests her head against his arm. No, it is not right that just as they were beginning their life together that this should happen; that a simple discovery, a mistake, a missed diagnosis, should have devastated their lives this way.

"No it isn't, love," she answers quietly. "She fought hard."

"She didn't give up!" he bristles.

"No, of course she didn't," Beryl gently assures him. She wipes at the tears that fall from her eyes as she feels Charles tense.

"She promised me once, that she would always be with me. She said to me once, 'I am right here. I always will be.'" Tears fill his eyes but he refuses to be a spectacle put on public display. She would hate that.

"They all left me. Mary, Alice, and now her," he gestures sadly to the coffin. Beryl holds to him tightly, her heart breaking for him anew; she turns to find Bill among the crowd of friends and family. She gestures for him to draw near to them, for him to offer his support.

"Why did you go Elsie?" he begins to question looking down at her. "Why? You promised me that you wouldn't leave me. You promised….you promised…..you promised…" He feels a warm arm wrap around his shoulders, pulling him away and he tries to push back.

"Charles…."

"Why did she go?"

"Charles…"

Suddenly his eyes fly open, she is there, her hands on his shoulders, and she is gently turning him, calling his name. It takes him a moment to register where he is; the room is dark with only the faint stream of moonlight teasing around the drapes. He blinks hard twice, then focuses on her face, and realizes that he is safe, that she is well, they are in bed, and it had all been a terrible dream.

"Charles, are you all right?" Elsie asks sweetly, smoothing his hair back and cupping his face in her hands.

"It was just a dream," he answers. "I'm sorry I woke you. Go back to bed." He places a kiss to her forehead and settles back against his pillow. Drawing her into a secure embrace, he sighs deeply. He feels her fingertips lightly trace across his chest as she snuggles in close but he cannot sleep. Truth told he does not want to sleep because in this world she is beside him, whole and well, warm and soft. She is all gentle fingers sliding across his skin, soft lips, and loving words whispered in the still of the night; she is the one who keeps him righted, the lighthouse in a stormy sea.

He sees the moonlight catch on the diamond in her ring causing it to cast a spark. She has worn it days now and he thought that those days would have been filled with happiness and passion, not endless worry and fear. He feels anger rise in his chest; anger at her for not telling him sooner, anger at himself for not proposing earlier, anger at this thing that is growing insider her, anger because they have to wait to find out the diagnosis. He needs something to lash out against, something that will take his frustrations and be none the worse for it. He had lied when he told her that it did not matter if they had only five months together because it does matter. It does matter that he has only had less than a year with her. It matters that he has wasted so much time on Alice Neal. It all matters.

CnE

"Damn!" Having unsuccessfully tried three times to thread the cuff link through the buttonhole, Charles is near to giving up when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees her sweep in from the bathroom.

"Let me," Elsie says as she stills his fumbling hands with her own steady ones. She threads one cuff link and then the other, fastens them into place. She then begins to work on the buttons of his shirt.

"I am supposed to be the one supporting you," he offers, a bit ashamed at his anxiety.

"You are," she assures him. She makes short work of the remainder of the buttons and then lovingly pats his chest. She looks up to him and finds a worry in his eyes that she wishes she could wipe away with a word, a kiss, a simple gesture but she knows that she cannot. She drops her hands from his chest and makes her way back into the bathroom to finish dressing and she needs a moment for herself. A moment to gather her thoughts, to prepare herself for the day they have ahead of them.

She closes the door and leans against it. She knows that Charles did not sleep because she lay awake as well. She had heard the things that he had said, the anguished murmurings of a man in distress. To think that the women he loved had left him, that he felt all alone, broke her heart. She will never tell him that she had heard him utter those words, never tell him she knew of the anger that laced his voice as he questioned her as to why she left him when she had promised to always be with him. No, she will keep those things locked away.

She knows that he is angry. He tries to hide it, his words are still kind, his eyes still soft when he looks at her, but the hard set of his jaw when he looks away is what lets her in, lets her see into the world that he is trying to keep her out of. Since he forced her confession days ago, they haven't spoken much of her condition. She took his fingers, guided them over the delicate skin, as he felt the lump for the first time. She felt the tension spread from his fingertips through his entire body. When he asked her if it hurt, she had told him 'No' but she still is not sure if he believes her. He has demanded that she rest, taken to staying the nights with her to ensure that she does. But other than that, they've discussed little. She knows that he is shutting her out but then she figures that she is no better; she had done the same to him.

She casts a gaze over the countertop and sees his things lying next to hers. The straight razor, the shave soap mug with the bristle brush carefully washed and shaken dry, lying beside it. The bottle of cologne, filled with the amber liquid that she now associates only with him sits next to her menagerie of cosmetics. Her heart swells at the thoughts that one day this will be permanent, his things next to hers. But now, she must get on, get about her business. Their appointment will not wait and they cannot put their lives on hold any longer.

He is glad that she retreated to the bathroom; he needs a moment to himself. He is so very overwhelmed with it all, the realness of the dream still lingering with him and the anxiety over what they may learn in an hour's time. He knows that she likely heard his murmurings; he felt the tears slip from her cheek onto his chest though she tried to wipe it away with her fingertips. He never meant to hurt her, to place more of a burden on her with the mumbled speech of his dreams. He shrugs into his jacket, adjusts the collar and cuffs, tugs down on the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, and touches the cuff link she fastened for him. He draws himself up to his full height and breathes in deeply.


	21. Just To Keep You By My Side

Tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear, Elsie nods an affirmation to Beryl’s question. Beryl means well; asking a string of questions, some of which she has asked at least twice just to confirm that she has understood the answer correctly. While Elsie has answered most of them, her attention focuses on the man at the bar and to the drink that he holds in his hand. He is working on his third and he is well on his way to asking Bill to top it off again. With the news they have just received she hasn’t the heart to stop him, to tell him that in an hour or so he will have unsteady legs and the nauseating sensation that the room is spinning out of control. No, she’ll let him indulge and deal with the consequences later. She will sling his limp arm around her shoulders, help him into her house, and watch as his limber body flops onto the bed. She remove his coat and shoes, pull the blanket over him and let him sleep it off. When he wakes, she will mop his brow with a cool cloth, brew a pot of strong coffee, and force him to eat the smallest bits of toast all in an effort to alleviate the pain that he is inflicting upon himself.

“He’ll be fine,” Beryl reassures her friend.

“I know, but he’ll hurt in the morning,” Elsie sighs as she watches Charles thrust his glass forward and Bill fill it with his best single malt.

“Well, if he’s going to drink all of Bill’s whiskey it’s best he’s doing it out of happiness instead of sorrow.” Beryl notices that as Elsie takes a sip of her orange juice and vodka a look of sadness, uncertainty passes across her face.

“What’s got you so worried, love? It’s good news. The doctor said that it’s a benign condition. A bit of surgery and it’s over,” Beryl asks, reaching across to take Elsie’s shaking hand.

“He did say that, yes, but he also said that it could return… and what if….” She is unsure how to continue and looking toward Charles as he animatedly chats with two men at the bar, she turns back to Beryl, tears stinging her eyes as she begins again. “What if they have to take more than what…” she rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. She cannot bring herself to say the words.

“And if they do, it will be fine. You will be fine and well. And that is what counts.” Beryl squeezes her hand in reassurance but she knows that there is something else; something that Elsie is not saying, something frightening and very private. She watches as Elsie looks back to Charles and then her gaze falls to her lap.

“What if….what if he sees me differently?” she asks in a near whisper. “The doctor said that sometimes with these things depending on how much tissue is taken….there can be…disfigurement.”

“Is that what’s got you worried?” Beryl asks and Elsie tightly nods in agreement. “Oh, Elsie. That man loves you and I have no doubt that everything will be all right.”

“I hope so,” Elsie replies softly, her glistening eyes flicking up to meet Beryl’s.

* * *

 

“Now I've gotta love so deep in the pit of my heart, and each day it grows more and more,” Charles sings in his finest, slightly off-key baritone. His arm slung over Elsie’s shoulder, they stumble toward the bedroom.

“Come on Mr. Sinatra, let get that jacket off,” Elsie says a little more sternly than she intends as she smoothes her palms under Charles’s coat.

“I can think of other things that I’d like to take off,” he replies, moving to work loosen the tie of her dress.

“You’re in no condition to take off anything,” she reminds him. Finally pulling his coat free, she folds it and places it across a nearby chair. “Now sit on the bed and let’s get those shoes off.”

“Ain’t too proud to beg sweet darling,” he begins to sing again. “Ain’t too proud to plead baby, baby, please don’t leave me girl.” Elsie removes one shoe and tugs his sock off; Charles reaches for her and playfully she slips just out of his grasp. “…Just to keep you by my side…. If I have to sleep on your doorstep….”

She cannot help but smile at his antics. She’s never seen this side of Charles, this Cheerful Charlie, and she thinks that she rather likes him. With his mussed hair, flushed cheeks, and broad smile, yes, she thinks that this side of Charles is one that he may regret come morning when his head is throbbing, but she is so glad that she’s seen this side of him; this carefree Charles. With Charles’ other shoe and sock removed, Elsie flicks her wrist, a slim finger motioning for him to lie back. Charles slips into bed and Elsie cannot help but to look down at him with soft eyes and a melting heart. Her lovely man, she thinks. They’ve been together almost a year and she can hardly think of what she would do without him in her life. She bends to pull the blanket up to cover him and as she begins to tuck the cover in around him, he gently reaches for her wrist.

“Come here, Mrs. Carson,” he whispers sweet and low, suddenly quite serious.

“I’m not Mrs. Carson, yet,” she reminds him.

“Just as good as,” he assures her, turning her hand so that her engagement ring shines brightly. He pulls her to sit beside him. “You’re not leaving me.” It is a statement, a declaration. The confirmation of hope that he has celebrated tonight.

“Not anytime soon Mr. Carson,” she responds, her eyes glistening. “You’re stuck with me. Remember?” The gentle love she finds in his eyes is her undoing and she is quickly blinking away tears; he reaches up to her, wipes the falling tears away from her high cheekbones with a tender touch.

She watches as his eyes begin to close, slumber claiming him at last. She watches the rise and fall of his chest, his breath beginning to even, and she reaches out to brush back the unruly shock of hair that curls onto his forehead. The moment she removes her hand, the curl springs back and she cannot help but smile and a small laugh escapes at the absurdity of it. She reaches to switch off the light and Charles, in his sleep, calls for her, reaches out for her. She places a light kiss to his forehead and he settles. No, she’s not leaving him. Not anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The condition that Elsie has is called a Fibroadenoma. They are non-cancerous breast lumps that can occur at anytime in a woman’s life but generally occur in a woman’s 20s and 30s. As woman ages they are generally recommended to be removed rather than watched. Women may have several of these and even once removed the fibroadenoma may recur. Regular exams are necessary to ensure breast health. You can find basic information at www dot cancer dot org.


	22. Stand By Me

Feeling cold and alone, the surgical gown she is wearing is ill-fitting; too loose around the sweep of her shoulders and too tight across the flare of her hips, it feels bunched uncomfortably around her bottom and despite her best attempts she cannot seem to get it sorted comfortably. And she is not warm enough by half. The lone blanket that the young nurse spread across her is not warming her chilled legs but that is not the only reason that she feels cold and alone. It has been a quarter hour since Charles left her side. After helping her change out of her clothing and into a hospital gown, and safely tucking her engagement ring inside his waistcoat pocket, the nurse shooed Charles out of the ward leaving Elsie on her own. Not exactly alone, people scurry about, nurses, technicians, doctors, yet Elsie feels isolated in her cubicle. She has been left alone and she is thinking; though hers is a benign condition, she wonders how things might be different had the diagnosis been different. Before her thoughts have too much time to fester, she notices the curtain that divides her cubicle from the next patient begin to rustle.

"Mrs. Crawley, what are you…..." Elsie is astonished to find Isobel Crawley pushing back the curtain that blocks off her cubicle from the others.

"I hope you don't mind but when I saw your name on Reginald's schedule, well, I still scrub in from time to time, and I thought that perhaps a familiar face might help to put your mind at ease." The words tumble quickly from Mrs. Crawley's lips as she busies herself flipping through Elsie's chart, ticking off items as she goes through the pages.

"No, I don't mind at all," Elsie replies. "In fact, I rather appreciate it. Thank you."

"You were wise not to wait and to schedule your surgery before the holidays. You'll still be healing but the worry of it all will be behind you."

"I must admit I thought of postponing it but Charles insisted," a nervous laugh forces its way out through a tense smile. Mrs. Crawley lays Elsie's chart to the side and gathers the items necessary for the intravenous drip that will transfer fluids and medicines into her body.

"Well, I know that he was anxious. Robert said as much when he phoned Reginald to ask if he could wrangle a spot on his schedule for you." Mrs. Crawley feels Elsie's hand tense beneath her fingers as she searches for a vein. She looks up to find Elsie confused and something else that she cannot quite place; she wonders if it is anger. "Oh, dear. I've said too much. I often do," Isobel confesses as she slips a tourniquet around Elsie's arm and then taps the top of her hand to plump the vein.

"Oh, no. It's all right. Really," Elsie soothes though she had explicitly asked Charles not to mention her condition to anyone and she certainly did not want him calling in any favours on her account. With practiced ease, Mrs. Crawley quickly and deftly slips the needle in and secures the line before Elsie feels any pain; it is doubtful that she would notice though, her mind focuses on Charles and his telephoning Robert, their playing the "connections" card. In this moment, she does not know whether to feel joy that he would do something of this nature for her or consternation at abuse of a system that she finds unfair to millions of people on waiting lists.

As she works, Mrs. Crawley chatters on about various things. She proudly tells Elsie of her only son Matthew who is taking his A levels with plans to study the law despite his father's wishes that his only son follows him into medicine. She speaks of the charity that she operates with Cora Crawley; Elsie knows that the two often lock horns, each such strong-willed women, but that they are effective and have helped dozens of women like Phyllis Baxter find new lives, leaving behind shameful pasts or ones full of pain and deprivation. In these few moments, Elsie learns more about Isobel Crawley than she has in the entire six years that she has known her. She learns that Mrs. Crawley is, at heart, a kind woman enveloped in the innate need to be needed, to be useful. In many ways, Elsie sees this trait in herself, the desire to be useful rather than idle, taking up space when one can help to make something better. In overabundance, Elsie knows many find this a flaw; she knows that the line between being a busybody and being helpful is a fine one.

"Now, do you have any questions?" Mrs. Crawley asks cheerfully as she tidies up.

Elsie looks down to her hands apprehensively and questions herself as to whether or not to ask what is really on her mind because in the long run the answer does not matter, not really. Because things will be what they are and she can do nothing but accept them. Mrs. Crawley, sensing Elsie's unease, stops what she is doing and rests a hand atop Elsie's trembling one.

"What is it?" Isobel asks softly, woman to woman.

"I know that Dr. Crawley and I discussed it, but how much do you think that….that Dr. Crawley with have to remove?" Elsie finally manages.

 

* * *

 

Charles snaps open his pocket watch and checks the time. It is ten minutes later than the last time he checked it and Beryl peers at him over the top of the romance novel that she is reading. She does not say a word, but judging by the exasperated look that she gives him, her brow furrowed, blue eyes narrowed, he knows that it has not been nearly long enough for the surgery to have begun and finished. Dr. Crawley has told them an hour and only half of that has passed. Yet Charles cannot help but to worry because despite her attempts to cheer him, he saw the look of uncertainty, perhaps fear in Elsie's eyes when he left her in the ward, the plastic bag with her possession in hand, and her engagement ring in his pocket. He knows that she worries about slight disfigurement or that the scar will be large, raised, and angry. He heard her say as much to Beryl when she thought he was not listening. He has tried to convince her it does not matter, that she is more to him than that.

"How's our girl?" a voice comes from behind Charles.

"Oh, Thomas. How are you?" Charles asks as he extends his hand to Thomas. "Thank you for coming. She's still in surgery but I expect that they should tell us something in half an hour or so."

"Do you mind if I wait with you?" Thomas firmly plants his hand in Charles', shakes it in friendship, and offers him one of the cups of coffee that he has brought with him.

"Of course not," Charles replies as he accepts the coffee, hands one to Beryl, and he and Thomas ease into two of the empty chairs near her. The minutes continue to slowly tick past and the three friends slip into quiet conversation. Charles is thankful for Thomas' company; it eases the silent tension that consumed him and Beryl as they agonized over Elsie. As Thomas gregariously regales them with a tale of one of his and Elsie's nights on the town a few years back, Charles' thinks back one how his life has changed over the past year. How Elsie has changed it so completely and how her friends are now his.

Charles reflects back to the early days of his relationship with Elsie when he wondered what she saw in the Thomas. Charles could agree that the young man was well spoken, well educated, and professional; his work ethic second to none. Yet, something about Thomas was off putting; it was not his lifestyle, no Charles was not that intolerant or unsympathetic. It was that Charles thought Thomas almost too slick, too polished, and sometimes too eager to please to the point of being false. Yet with Elsie, Thomas' attempt at counterfeit emotions seem to flutter away and initially Charles thought that it had to do with Elsie's intolerance of insincerity. The more that Charles observes them together, over Saturday brunch, over cocktails, or when Elsie cooks for them, he wonders if it simply has to do with the fact that she accepts Thomas for who he is when his own mother rejects him and his father finds him twisted. Over time, Charles and Thomas have come to appreciate one another and have come to appreciate the fact that they both love the same woman.

As time passes, Thomas and Charles discuss local politics until Beryl places a hand on Charles' arm and squeezes gently. She nods in the direction of the doctor who is quickly approaching them. A tall, well-built man with piercing blue eyes and a purposeful stride, Dr. Crawley comes bearing news of Elsie.

"Mr. Carson," Dr. Crawley inquires in smooth, educated politeness.

"Yes, Dr. Crawley. How is she?" Charles asks anxiously as he stands to greet the doctor. He shoves his hands into his pockets to keep them from trembling.

"The surgery was successful. We removed the cyst completely and I think that she will be pleased with the results. Scarring should be fairly minimal all things considered," Dr. Crawley reaches to untie his surgical cap, and remove it. "You will be able to see her in about an hour when they move her to a room. I'll check in with her later."

"Thank you Dr. Crawley," Charles replies. "For all that you have done."

  

* * *

 

Beryl has returned home to cook; hospital food being what it is, she has promised to bring something edible for Charles and Elsie later in the evening. Charles has settled into the uncomfortable chair nearest Elsie's bed and watches as she sleeps. He wants to reach out, to take her hand, and bring it to his lips; wants to pull her close and tell her that everything is all right, that she is well, and there is nothing at all about which to worry. Instead, he thinks of how frail she appears in that dreadful hospital gown, how uncomfortable she must be, attached to bags of fluids, blood pressure monitors, and the like.

"A penny for them," she manages, her voice a little husky, hoarse, and frayed around the edges.

"Was I thinking so loudly that I woke you?" he teases.

"No," she replies before beginning to cough. Then wincing in pain, she instinctively hugs her arm around her waist to support herself. Charles moves to her side, puts his arms around her back and shoulders, tries to brace her. The coughing he tells her is a consequence of surgery, of general anaesthesia, the nurses had warned him about it.

As the coughing subsides, Charles places a kiss to her hair and begins to move back to his chair, but Elsie catches his hand and tugs him back to her. She is pleading with him, her lip worried, her eyes misty. She is asking a silent question and without a word passing between them, he knows the answer. He moves back to her side and gently loosens the ties of her gown. He carefully pulls back the fabric at her shoulder to reveal the white surgical bandage and as he inspects it, Elsie watches him; it is important that she gauge his reaction. While she is a strong woman, this thing that she has faced, this thing that invaded her body, almost took the wind out of her sails. She knows what Dr. Crawley told her and what Isobel confirmed, that everything went as clockwork, the surgery was as routine as routine could be but she needs to share this moment with Charles, to confirm it together.

The bandage is not so large and Charles is grateful; he hopes that it will put Elsie's mind at ease and the blood that has seeped through is not so very much. The on call nurse has assured them that some blood is perfectly normal in these types of situations. He breaks his gaze from the bandage and back to Elsie and nods, offers her a tiny smile.

"Look for yourself," he tells her. She glances down and when she sees that everything is just as the doctor said it should be, she heaves a deep sigh of relief and a tear rolls down her cheek. Charles lifts the fabric of the gown back into place and ties the string at her shoulder. Straightening the blankets, he gently kisses her. "See, everything is all right," he whispers against her lips.

"Charles?"

"Hmmm." He sits on the side of the bed, takes her hand in his.

"Did you speak to the Crawleys about me?"

"I don't know what you mean. Why?" He knows exactly what she means and he wonders how she has found out; she seems to know so many things and he knows that she will know that he is lying.

"Don't worry, darling" she assures him with a small smile. "I am touched. I freely admit it. I am quite touched that you and Robert would go to such trouble."

 

* * *

 

 

Charles whistles a happy tune as he parks the car near the hospital's entrance. Elsie has done well overnight and Dr. Crawley has discharged her to return home. A light rain has fallen, but the sky has cleared and the morning's sun shines bright. The air is crisp and cold but fitting for the Christmas season. Charles bounds up the hospital's front steps, nods hello to an elderly couple he passes along the way and then familiar voices draws his attention. He pauses, turns, and sees Charlie Grigg with a small bundle in his arms and following beside them, a nurse pushes Alice in a wheelchair. Charles' feet are rooted to the ground as he watches Grigg fold back the baby's blankets to show her tiny face an inquiring passer-by. He watches the scene unfold; the proud father wreathed in smiles, the mother, smiling broadly, accepting the congratulations of the admiring stranger. For the first time in his life pangs of jealousy course through him and Charles resents Charlie Grigg; he knows that Grigg is so undeserving of it all. Undeserving of the baby, the wife, the family. Charles does not want Alice, no Elsie is the woman he wants, but he wants everything that Grigg has, everything that Grigg and Alice said that they never wanted. The child, family. He wonders how long it will last before they tire of one another, how long Grigg will stay true to one woman or how long Alice will be happy devoting her time to a screaming, needy infant. He watches as the little family moves on, makes their way to a waiting taxi, and drives away. He reaches into his waistcoat pocket and feels Elsie's ring there; he knows that it will not be long before they are married and they have everything of which they dream.


End file.
